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THE KNIGHTS of 
the SILVER SHIELD 






Hilary awakened her by speaking her name softly Page 115 





THE KNIGHTS of 
the SILVER SHIELD 


By 

RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN 


With illustrations by 

KATHARINE HAYWARD GREENLAND 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1906 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 

September 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Con!** Received 


AUG 80 1906 


^Copyrig-M Entry 
CLASjr & XXc. No. 

/SV3S# 

COPY B. 


f f t < 

PRESS <OFf 

BRAUNWORT H & CO. 
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



To 

D. H. A. 







































CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The Knights of the Silver Shield i 

Why the Chimes Rang 14 

The Boy Who Discovered the Spring 23 

The Brook in the King’s Garden 35 

The Hunt for the Beautiful 48 

The Boy Who Went Out of the World 62 

The Palace Made by Music 77 

The Forest Full of Friends 90 

The Bag of Smiles 105 

The Castle Under the Sea 124 

In the Great Walled Country 138 





























THE KNIGHTS of 
the SILVER SHIELD 




T HERE was once a splendid 
castle in a forest, with great 
stone walls and a high gateway, 
and turrets that rose away above 
the tallest trees. The forest was 
dark and dangerous, and many 
cruel giants lived in it; but in the 
castle was a company of knights, 
who were kept there by the king 
of the country, to help travelers 
who might be in the forest, and to 
fight with the giants whenever 
they could. 

Each of these knights wore a 


The Knights of the 
Silver Shield 




THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


beautiful suit of armor and carried a long spear, while 
over his helmet there floated a great red plume that 
could be seen a long way off by any one in distress. 
But the most wonderful thing about the knights’ armor 
was their shields. They were not like those of other 
knights, but had been made by a great magician who 
had lived in the castle many years before. They were 
made of silver, and sometimes shone in the sunlight 
with dazzling brightness; but at other times the surface 
of the shields would be clouded as though by a mist, 
and one could not see his face reflected there as he 
could when they shone brightly. 

Now, when each young knight received his spurs 
and his armor, a new shield was also given him from 
among those that the magician had made; and when 
the shield was new its surface was always cloudy and 
dull. But as the knight began to do service against 
the giants, or went on expeditions to help poor travelers 
in the forest, his shield grew brighter and brighter, 
so that he could see his face clearly reflected in it. 
But if he proved to be a lazy or cowardly knight, 
and let the giants get the better of him, or did not 
care what became of the travelers, then the shield 
grew more and more cloudy, until the knight became 
ashamed to carry it. 


2 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 

But this was not all. When any one of the 
knights fought a particularly hard battle, and won the 
victory, or when he went on some hard errand for the 
lord of the castle, and was successful, not only did his 
silver shield grow brighter, but when one looked into 
the center of it he could see something like a golden 
star shining in its very heart. This was the greatest 
honor that a knight could achieve, and the other 
knights always spoke of such a one as having “ won 
his star.” It was usually not till he was pretty old 
and tried as a soldier that he could win it. At the 
time when this story begins, the lord of the castle 
himself was the only one of the knights whose shield 
bore the golden star. 

There came a time when the worst of the giants in 
the forest gathered themselves together to have a 
battle against the knights. They made a camp in a 
dark hollow not far from the castle, and gathered all 
their best warriors together, and all the knights made 
ready to fight them. The windows of the castle were 
closed and barred; the air was full of the noise of 
armor being made ready for use; and the knights 
were so excited that they could scarcely rest or eat. 

Now there was a young knight in the castle, named 
Sir Roland, who was among those most eager for the 
3 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


battle. He was a splendid warrior, with eyes that 
shone like stars whenever there was anything to do 
in the way of knightly deeds. And although he was 
still quite young, his shield had begun to shine enough 
to show plainly that he had done bravely in some of 
his errands through the forest. This battle, he 
thought, would be the great opportunity of his life. 
And on the morning of the day when they were to go 
forth to it, and all the knights assembled in the great 
hall of the castle to receive the commands of their 
leaders, Sir Roland hoped that he would be put in 
the most dangerous place of all, so that he could show 
what knightly stuff he was made of. 

But when the lord of the castle came to him, as he 
went about in full armor giving his commands, he 
said: “ One brave knight must stay behind and guard 
the gateway of the castle, and it is you, Sir Roland, 
being one of the youngest, whom I have chosen for 
this.” 

At these words Sir Roland was so disappointed 
that he bit his lip, and closed his helmet over his face 
so that the other knights might not see it. For a 
moment he felt as if he must reply angrily to the 
commander, and tell him that it was not right to 
leave so sturdy a knight behind, when he was eager 


4 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


to fight. But he struggled against this feeling, and 
went quietly to look after his duties at the gate. The 
gateway was high and narrow, and was reached from 
outside by a high, narrow bridge that crossed the 
moat, which surrounded the castle on every side. 
When an enemy approached, the knight on guard rang 
a great bell just inside the gate, and the bridge was 
drawn up against the castle wall, so that no one could 
come across the moat. So the giants had long ago 
given up trying to attack the castle itself. 

To-day the battle was to be in the dark hollow in. 
the forest, and it was not likely that there would be 
anything to do at the castle gate, except to watch it 
like a common doorkeeper. It was not strange that 
Sir Roland thought some one else might have done 
this. 

Presently all the other knights marched out in 
their flashing armor, their red plumes waving over 
their heads, and their spears in their hands. The lord 
of the castle stopped only to tell Sir Roland to keep 
guard over the gate until they had all returned, and 
to let no one enter. Then they went into the shadows 
of the forest, and were soon lost to sight. 

Sir Roland stood looking after them long after 
they had gone, thinking how happy he would be if 


5 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


he were on the way to battle like them. But after 
a little he put this out of his mind, and tried to 
think of pleasanter things. It was a long time before 
anything happened, or any word came from the battle. 

At last Sir Roland saw one of the knights come 
limping down the path to the castle, and he went out 
on the bridge to meet him. Now this knight was not 
a brave one, and he had been frightened away as soon 
as he was wounded. 

“ I have been hurt,” he said, “ so that I can not 
fight any more. But I could watch the gate for you, 
if you would like to go back in my place.” 

At first Sir Roland’s heart leaped with joy at this, 
but then he remembered what the commander had 
told him on going away, and he said: 

“ I should like to go, but a knight belongs where 
his commander has put him. My place is here at the 
gate, and I can not open it even for you. Your place 
is at the battle.” 

The knight was ashamed when he heard this, and 
he presently turned about and went into the forest 
again. 

So Sir Roland kept guard silently for another hour. 
Then there came an old beggar woman down the path 
to the castle, and asked Sir Roland if she might come 
6 



An old beggar woman came down the path Page 6 



THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


in and have some food. He told her that no one 
could enter the castle that day, but that he would 
send a servant out to her with food, and that she 
might sit and rest as long as she would. 

“ I have been past the hollow in the forest where 
the battle is going on,” said the old woman, while she 
was waiting for her food. 

“ And how do you think it is going? ” asked Sir 
Roland. 

“ Badly for the knights, I am afraid,” said the old 
woman. “ The giants are fighting as they have never 
fought before. I should think you had better go and 
help your friends.” 

“ I should like to, indeed,” said Sir Roland. “ But 
I am set to guard the gateway of the castle, and 
can not leave.” 

“ One fresh knight would make a great difference 
when they are all weary with fighting,” said the 
old woman. “ I should think that, while there are 
no enemies about, you would be much more useful 
there.” 

“ You may well think so,” said Sir Roland, “ and 
so may I; but it is neither you nor I that is commander 
here.” 

“ I suppose,” said the old woman then, “ that you 
7 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


are one of the kind of knights who like to keep out of 
fighting. You are lucky to have so good an excuse 
for staying at home.” And she laughed a thin and 
taunting laugh. 

Then Sir Roland was very angry, and thought that 
if it were only a man instead of a woman, he would 
show him whether he liked fighting or no. But as it 
was a woman, he shut his lips and set his teeth hard 
together, and as the servant came just then with the 
food he had sent for, he gave it to the old woman 
quickly, and shut the gate that she might not talk to 
him any more. 

It was not very long before he heard some one 
calling outside. Sir Roland opened the gate, and saw 
standing at the other end of the drawbridge a little old 
man in a long black cloak. “ Why are you knocking 
here? ” he said. “ The castle is closed to-day.’ 

“ Are you Sir Roland? ” said the little old man. 

“Yes,” said Sir Roland. 

“ Then you ought not to be staying here when 
your commander and his knights are having so hard 
a struggle with the giants, and when you have the 
chance to make of yourself the greatest knight in this 
kingdom. Listen to me! I have brought you a 
magic sword.” 


8 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


As he said this, the old man drew from under his 
coat a wonderful sword that flashed in the sunlight as 
if it were covered with diamonds. “ This is the 
sword of all swords,” he said, “ and it is for you, if 
you will leave your idling here by the castle gate, and 
carry it to the battle. Nothing can stand before it. 
When you lift it the giants will fall back, your master 
will be saved, and you will be crowned the victorious 
knight — the one who will soon take his commander’s 
place as lord of the castle.” 

Now Sir Roland believed that it was a magician 
who was speaking to him, for it certainly appeared to 
be a magic sword. It seemed so wonderful that the 
sword should be brought to him, that he reached out 
his hand as though he would take it, and the little old 
man came forward, as though he would cross the 
drawbridge into the castle. But as he did so, it came 
to Sir Roland’s mind again that that bridge and the 
gateway had been intrusted to him, and he called out 
“ No! ” to the old man, so that he stopped where he 
was standing. But he waved the shining sword in the 
air again, and said: “ It is for you! Take it, and win 
the victory! ” 

Sir Roland was really afraid that if he looked any 
longer at the sword, or listened to any more words of the 


9 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


old man, he would not be able to hold himself within 
the castle. For this reason he struck the great bell 
at the gateway, which was the signal for the servants 
inside to pull in the chains of the drawbridge, and 
instantly they began to pull, and the drawbridge 
came up, so that the old man could not cross it to 
enter the castle, nor Sir Roland to go out. 

Then, as he looked across the moat, Sir Roland 
saw a wonderful thing. The little old man threw off 
his black cloak, and as he did so he began to grow 
bigger and bigger, until in a minute more he was a 
giant as tall as any in the forest. At first Sir Roland 
could scarcely believe his eyes. Then he realized that 
this must be one of their giant enemies, who had 
changed himself to a little old man through some 
magic power, that he might make his way into the 
castle while all the knights were away. Sir Roland 
shuddered to think what might have happened if he 
had taken the sword and left the gate unguarded. 
The giant shook his fist across the moat that lay 
between them, and then, knowing that he could do 
nothing more, he went angrily back into the forest. 

Sir Roland now resolved not to open the gate again, 
and to pay no attention to any other visitor. But it 
was not long before he heard a sound that made him 


io 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


spring forward in joy. It was the bugle of the lord of 
the castle, and there came sounding after it the bugles 
of many of the knights that were with him, pealing 
so joyfully that Sir Roland was sure they were safe 
and happy. As they came nearer, he could hear 
their shouts of victory. So he gave the signal to let 
down the drawbridge again, and went out to meet 
them. They were dusty and bloodstained and weary, 
but they had won the battle with the giants; and it 
had been such a great victory that there had never 
been a happier home-coming. 

Sir Roland greeted them all as they passed in over 
the bridge, and then, when he had closed the gate and 
fastened it, he followed them into the great hall of the 
castle. The lord of the castle took his place on the 
highest seat, with the other knights about him, and 
Sir Roland came forward with the key of the gate, to 
give his account of what he had done in the place to 
which the commander had appointed him. The lord 
of the castle bowed to him as a sign for him to begin, 
but just as he opened his mouth to speak, one of the 
knights cried out: 

“The shield! the shield! Sir Roland’s shield!” 

Every one turned and looked at the shield which 
Sir Roland carried on his left arm. He himself could 


ii 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


see only the top of it, and did not know what they 
could mean. But what they saw was the golden star 
of knighthood, shining brightly from the center of 
Sir Roland’s shield. There had never been such 
amazement in the castle before. 

Sir Roland knelt before the lord of the castle to 
receive his commands. He still did not know why 
every one was looking at him so excitedly, and won- 
dered if he had in some way done wrong. 

“ Speak, Sir Knight,” said the commander, as soon 
as he could find his voice after his surprise, “ and tell 
us all that has happened to-day at the castle. Have 
you been attacked? Have any giants come hither? 
Did you fight them alone? ” 

“ No, my Lord,” said Sir Roland. “ Only one 
giant has been here, and he went away silently when 
he found he could not enter.” 

Then he told all that had happened through the 
day. 

When he had finished, the knights all looked at one 
another, but no one spoke a word. Then they looked 
again at Sir Roland’s shield, to make sure that their 
eyes had not deceived them, and there the golden star 
was still shining. 

After a little silence the lord of the castle spoke. 


12 


THE KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SHIELD 


“Men make mistakes,” he said, “ but- our silver 
shields are never mistaken. Sir Roland has fought 
and won the hardest battle of all to-day.” 

Then the others all rose and saluted Sir Roland, 
who was the youngest knight that ever carried the 
golden star. 



Why the Chimes Rang 

T HERE was once, in a far-away country where 
few people have ever traveled, a wonderful church. 
It stood on a high hill in the midst of a great city; and 
every Sunday, as well as on sacred days like Christmas, 
thousands of people climbed the hill to its great arch- 
ways, looking like lines of ants all moving in the 
same direction. 

14 


/ 

WHY THE CHIMES RANG 

When you j came to the building itself, you found 
stone columnsjand dark passages, and a grand entrance 
leading to the main room of the church. This room 
was so long that one standing at the doorway could 
scarcely see to the other end, where the choir stood 
by the marble altar. In the farthest comer was the 
organ; and this organ was so loud that sometimes 
when it played, the people for miles around would 
close their shutters and prepare for a great thunder- 
storm. Altogether, no such church as this was ever 
seen before, especially when it was lighted up for some 
festival, and crowded with people, young and old. 

But the strangest thing about the whole building 
was the wonderful chime of bells. At one comer of 
the church was a great gray tower, with ivy growing 
over it as far up as one could see. I say as far as 
one could see, because the tower was quite great 
enough to fit the great church, and it rose so far into 
the sky that it was only in very fair weather that any 
one claimed to be able to see the top. Even then one 
could not be certain that it was in sight. Up, and up, 
and up climbed the stones and the ivy; and, as the 
men who built the church had been dead for hundreds 
of years, every one had forgotten how high the tower 
was supposed to be. 


15 


WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


Now all the people knew that at the top of the 
tower was a chime of Christmas bells. They had 
hung there ever since the church had been built, and 
were the most beautiful bells in the world. Some 
thought it was because a great musician had cast them 
and arranged them in their place; others said it 
was because of the great height, which reached up 
where the air was clearest and purest: however that 
might be, no one who had ever heard the chimes 
denied that they were the sweetest in the world. 
Some described them as sounding like angels far up in 
the sky; others, as sounding like strange winds singing 
through the trees. 

But the fact was that no one had heard them for 
years and years. There was an old man living not 
far from the church, who said that his mother had 
spoken of hearing them when she was a little girl, and 
he was the only one who was sure of as much as that. 
They were Christmas chimes, you see, and were not 
meant to be played by men or on common days. It 
was the custom on Christmas Eve for all the people 
to bring to the church their offerings to the Christ- 
child; and when the greatest and best offering was 
laid on the altar, there used to come sounding through 
the music of the choir the Christmas chimes far up in 

16 


WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


the tower. Some said that the wind rang them, and 
others that they were so high that the angels could 
set them swinging. But for many long years they 
had never been heard. 

It was said that people had been growing less 
careful of their gifts for the Christ-child, and that no 
offering was brought, great enough to deserve the 
music of the chimes. Every Christmas Eve the rich 
people still crowded to the altar, each one trying to 
bring some better gift than any other, without giving 
anything that he wanted for himself, and the church 
was crowded with those who thought that perhaps 
the wonderful bells might be heard again. But 
although the service was splendid, and the offerings 
plenty, only the roar of the wind could be heard, far 
up in the stone tower. 

Now, a number of miles from the city, in a little 
country village, where nothing could be seen of the 
great church but glimpses of the tower when the 
weather was fine, lived a boy named Pedro, and his 
little brother. They knew very little about the 
Christmas chimes, but they had heard of the service 
in the church on Christmas Eve, and had a secret plan, 
which they had often talked over when by themselves, 
to go to see the beautiful celebration. 




WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


“Nobody can guess, Little Brother,” Pedro would 
say, “all the fine things there are to see and hear; 
and I have even heard it said that the Christ-child 
sometimes comes down to bless the service. What if 
we could see Him? ” 

The day before Christmas was bitterly cold, with 
a few lonely snowflakes flying in the air, and a hard 
white crust on the ground. Sure enough, Pedro and 
Little Brother were able to slip quietly away early in 
the afternoon; and although the walking was hard in 
the frosty air, before nightfall they had trudged so far, 
hand in hand, that they saw the lights of the big city 
just ahead of them. Indeed, they were about to enter 
one of the great gates in the wall that surrounded it, 
when they saw something dark on the snow near their 
path, and stepped aside to look at it. 

It was a poor woman, who had fallen just outside 
the city, too sick and tired to get in where she might 
have found shelter. The soft snow made of a drift 
a sort of pillow for her, and she would soon be so 
sound asleep, in the wintry air, that no one could ever 
waken her again. All this Pedro saw in a moment, 
and he knelt down beside her and tried to rouse her, 
even tugging at her arm a little, as though he would 
have tried to carry her away. He turned her face 
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I cannot bear to go on alone 



















































































































WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


toward him, so that he could rub some of the snow 
on it, and when he had looked at her silently a moment 
he stood up again, and said: 

“ It’s no use, Little Brother. You will have to go 
on alone.” 

“Alone?” cried Little Brother. “And you not 
see the Christmas festival? ” 

“ No,” said Pedro, and he could not keep back 
a bit of a choking sound in his throat. “ See this 
poor woman. Her face looks like the Madonna in the 
chapel window, and she will freeze to death if nobody 
cares for her. Every one has gone to the church now, 
but when you come back you can bring some one to 
help her. I will rub her to keep her from freezing, 
and perhaps get her to eat the bun that is left in my 
pocket.” 

“ But I can not bear to leave you, and go on alone,” 
said Little Brother. 

“ Both of us need not miss the service,” said 
Pedro, “ and it had better be I than you. You can 
easily find your way to the church; and you must see 
and hear everything twice, Little Brother — once for 
you and once for me. I am sure the Christ-child 
must know how I should love to come with you and 
worship Him; and oh! if you get a chance, Little 


19 


WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


Brother, to slip up to the altar without getting in 
any one’s way, take this little silver piece of mine, and 
lay it down for my offering, when no one is looking. 
Do not forget where you have left me, and forgive me 
for not going with you.” 

In this way he hurried Little Brother off to the 
city, and winked hard to keep back the tears, as he 
heard the crunching footsteps sounding farther and 
farther away in the twilight. It was pretty hard to 
lose the music and splendor of the Christmas celebra- 
tion that he had been planning for so long, and spend 
the time instead in that lonely place in the snow. 

The great church was a wonderful place that 
night. Every one said that it had never looked so 
bright and beautiful before. When the organ played 
and the thousands of people sang, the walls shook 
with the sound, and little Pedro, away outside the 
city wall, felt the earth tremble around him. 

At the close of the service came the procession 
with the offerings to be laid on the altar. Rich men 
and great men marched proudly up to lay down their 
gifts to the Christ-child. Some brought wonderful 
jewels, some baskets of gold so heavy that they could 
scarcely carry them down the aisle. A great writer 
laid down a book that he had been making for years 


20 


WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


and years. And last of all walked the king of the. 
country, hoping with all the rest to win for himself 
the chime of the Christmas bells. There went a great 
murmur through the church, as the people saw the 
king take from his head the royal crown, all set with 
precious stones, and lay it gleaming on the altar, as 
his offering to the holy Child. “ Surely,”. every one 
said, “ we shall hear the bells now, for nothing like 
this has ever happened before.” 

But still only the cold old wind was heard in the 
tower, and the people shook their heads; and some of 
them said, as they had before, that they never really 
believed the story of the chimes, and doubted if they 
ever rang at all. 

The procession was over, and the choir began the 
closing hymn. Suddenly the organist stopped play- 
ing as though he had been shot, and every one looked 
at the old minister, who was standing by the altar,, 
holding up his hand for silence. Not a sound 
could be heard from any one in the church, but as 
all the people strained their ears to listen, there came 
softly, but distinctly, swinging through the air, the 
sound of the chimes in the tower. So far away, and 
yet so clear the music seemed — so much sweeter were 
the notes than anything that had been heard before,. 


21 


WHY THE CHIMES RANG 


rising and falling away up there in the sky, that the 
people in the church sat for a moment as still as 
though something held each of them by the shoulders. 
Then they all stood up together and stared straight 
at the altar, to see what great gift had awakened the 
long-silent bells. 

But all that the nearest of them saw was the 
childish figure of Little Brother, who had crept softly 
down the aisle when no one was looking, and had 
laid Pedro’s little piece of silver on the altar. 


22 



The Boy Who Discovered the Spring 

T HERE came once a little Elf Boy to live on this 
earth, and he was so much pleased with it that 
he stayed, never caring to go back to his own world. 
I do not know where his own world was, or just how 
he came to leave it. Some thought that he was 
dropped by accident from some falling star, and some 
that he had flown away, thinking that he could fly 
23 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


back again whenever he chose, because he did not 
know that children always lose their wings when they, 
come into this world. But no one knew certainly, as 
he never told any one; and, after all, it did not matter, 
since, as I have already said, he liked the earth so 
much that he did not care to leave it. 

There was a Hermit who lived in the valley where 
the little Boy had first come, and, as he had a room in 
his house for a visitor, he took him in, and they grew 
to like each other so well that again the little Boy 
did not care to go away, nor did the Hermit care to 
have him. The Hermit had not always been a Hermit, 
but he had become a sorrowful man, and did not care to 
live where other people lived, or to share any of their 
pleasures. The reason he had become a sorrowful 
man was that his only child had died, and it seemed 
to him that there was nothing worth living for after 
that. So he moved to the lonely valley, and I suppose 
would have spent the rest of his life by himself, if it 
had not been for the little Elf Boy. 

It was a very lovely valley, with great, green 
meadows that sloped down to a rippling brook, and in 
summer-time were full of red and white and yellow 
blossoms. Over the brook there hung green trees, 
whose roots made pleasant places to rest when one 


24 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


was tired; and along the water’s edge there grew blue 
flowers, while many little frogs and other live creatures 
played there. It was summer-time when the little 
Elf Boy came, and the flowers and the trees and the 
brook and the frogs made him very happy. I think 
that in the world from which he came they did not have 
such things: it was made chiefly of gold and silver 
and precious stones, instead of things that grow and 
blossom and keep one company. So the Elf Boy was 
very happy. He did not ask to go to play in the 
village over the hill, but was quite content with the 
meadows and the brook-side. The only thing that did 
not please him was' that the old Hermit still remained 
sorrowful, thinking always of his child who had died; 
and this the Elf Boy did not understand, for in the 
world from which he came nothing ever died, and 
he thought it strange that if the Hermit’s child had 
died he did not patiently wait for him to come back 
again. 

So the summer went merrily on, and the Elf Boy 
learned to know the names of all the flowers in the 
meadow, and to love them dearly. He also became 
so well acquainted with the birds that they would 
come to him for crumbs, and sit on the branches close 
by to sing to him; the frogs would do the same thing, 
25 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


and although the Elf Boy did not think their voices 
as sweet as those of the birds, he was too polite to 
let them know it. 

But when September came, there began to be a sad 
change. The first thing the Elf Boy noticed was that 
the birds began to disappear from the meadows. 
When he complained of this, the Hermit told him 
they had gone to make their visit to the Southland, 
and would come back again; and this he easily believed.' 
But as time went on, and the air became more and 
more still as the last of them took their flight, he began 
to lose heart. 

What was worse, at the same time the flowers 
began to disappear from the meadows. They were 
dead, the Hermit said, and in this way the Elf Boy 
learned what that meant. At first others came to 
take their places, and he tried to learn to like the 
flowers of autumn as well as those which he had 
known first. But as these faded and dropped off, 
none came after them. The mornings grew colder, 
and the leaves on the trees were changing in a strange 
way. When they grew red and yellow, instead of 
green, the Elf Boy thought it was a queer thing for 
them to put on different colors, and wondered how 
long it would last. But when they began to fall, he 
26 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


was very sad indeed. At last there came a day when 
every limb was bare, except for a few dried leaves at 
the top of one of the tallest trees. The Elf Boy was 
almost broken-hearted. 

One morning he went out early, to see what new 
and dreadful thing had happened in the night, for it 
seemed now that every night took something beautiful 
out of the world. He made his way toward the brook, 
but when he reached the place where he usually heard 
it calling to him as it ran merrily over the stones, he 
could not hear a sound. He stopped and listened, 
but everything was wonderfully still. Then he ran as 
fast as his feet would carry him to the border of the 
brook. Sure enough, it had stopped running. It was 
covered with a hard sheet of ice. 

The Elf Boy turned and went to the Hermit’s 
house. By the time he had reached it, the tears were 
running down his cheeks. 

“ Why, what is the matter? ” asked the Hermit. 

“ The brook is dead,” said the Elf Boy. 

“ I think not,” said the Hermit. “It is frozen 
over, but that will not hurt it. Be patient, and it will 
sing to you again.” 

“ No,” said the Elf Boy. “You told me that the 
birds would come back, and they have not come. 


27 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


You told me that the trees were not dead, but their 
leaves have every one gone, and I am sure they are. 
You told me that the flowers had seeds that did not 
die, but would make other flowers; but I can not find 
them, and the meadow is bare and dark. Even the 
grass is not green any more. It is a dead world. In 
the summer-time I did not see how you could be sorrow- 
ful; but now I do not see how any one can be happy.” 

The Hermit thought it would be of no use to try 
to explain anything more to the Elf Boy; so he said 
again, “ Be patient,” and tried to find some books 
in which he could teach the Boy to read, and make him 
forget the outside world. 

The next time they went for a walk to the village 
over the hill, the Elf Boy was very curious to see 
whether the same thing had happened there that had 
happened in their valley. Of course it had: the trees 
there seemed dead, too, and the flowers were all gone 
from the door-yards. The Boy expected that every 
one in the village would now be as sorrowful as the 
Hermit, and he was very much surprised when he saw 
them looking as cheerful as ever. There were some 
boys playing on the street-comer, who seemed to be 
as happy as boys could be. One of them spoke to 
the Elf Boy, and he answered : 

28 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


“ How can you play so happily, when such a 
dreadful thing has happened to the world? ” 

“ Why, what has happened? ” 

“ The flowers and trees are dead,” said the Elf Boy, 
“ and the birds are gone, and the brook is frozen, and 
the meadow is bare and gray. And it is so on this 
side of the hill also.” 

Then the boys in the street laughed merrily, and 
did not answer the Elf Boy, for they remembered that 
he was a stranger in the world, and supposed he 
would not understand if they should try to talk to 
him. And he went on through the village, not daring 
to speak to any others, but all the time wondering 
that the people could still be so happy. 

As the winter came on, the Hermit taught him 
many things from the books in his house, and the Elf 
Boy grew interested in them and was not always sad. 
When the snow came he found ways to play in it, 
and even saw that the meadow was beautiful again, 
though in a different way from what it had been in 
summer. Yet still he could not think the world by any 
means so pleasant a place as it had been in the time 
of flowers and birds; and if it were not that he had 
become very fond of the Hermit, who was now the 
only friend he could remember, he would have wished 


29 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


to go back to the world from which he had come. 
It seemed to him now that the Hermit must miss 
him very much if he should go away, since they two 
were the only people who seemed really to understand 
how sorrowful a place the earth is. 

So the weeks went by. One day in March, as he 
and the Hermit sat at their books, drops of water 
began to fall from the eaves of the roof, and they saw 
that the snow was melting in the sunshine. 

“ Do you want to take a little walk down toward 
the brook? ” asked the Hermit. “ I should not 
wonder if I could prove to you to-day that it has not 
forgotten how to talk to you.” 

“Yes,” said the Elf Boy, though he did not think 
the Hermit could be right. It was months since he 
had cared to visit the brook, it made him so sad to 
find it still and cold. 

When they reached the foot of the hillside the 
sheet of ice was still there, as he had expected. 

“ Never mind,” said the Hermit. “ Come out on 
the ice with me, and put down your ear and listen.” 

So the Elf Boy put down his ear and listened; and 
he heard, as plainly as though there were no ice 
between, the voice of the brook gurgling in the bottom 
of its bed. He clapped his hands for joy. 


30 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


“It is waking up, you see,” said the Hermit. 
“ Other things will waken too, if you will be patient.” 

The Elf Boy did not know quite what to think, but 
he waited day after day with his eyes and ears wide 
open to see if anything else might happen; and won- 
derful things did happen all the time. The brook 
sang more and more distinctly, and at last broke 
through its cold coverlet and went dancing along in 
full sight. One morning, while the snow was still 
around the house, the Elf Boy heard a chirping sound, 
and, looking from his window, saw a red robin outside 
asking for his breakfast. 

“ Why,” cried the Boy, “ have you really come 
back again? ” 

“ Certainly,” said the robin, “ don’t you know it 
is almost spring?” 

But the Elf Boy did not understand what he said. 

There was a pussy-willow growing by the brook, 
and the Boy’s next discovery was that hundreds of 
little gray buds were coming out. He watched them 
grow bigger from day to day, and while he was doing 
this the snow was melting away in great patches where 
the sun shone warmest on the meadow, and the blades 
of grass that came up into the daylight were greener 
than anything the Elf Boy had ever seen. 


3i 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 

Then the pink buds came on the maple trees, and 
unfolded day by day. And the fruit trees in the 
Hermit’s orchard were as white with blossoms as they 
had lately been with snow. 

“ Not a single tree is dead,” said the Elf Boy. 

Last of all came the wild flowers — blue and white 
violets near the brook, dandelions around the house, 
and, a little later, yellow buttercups all over the 
meadow. Slowly but steadily the world was made 
over, until it glowed with white and green and gold. 

The Elf Boy was wild with joy. One by one his old 
friends came back, and he could not bear to stay in the 
house for many minutes from morning to night. Now 
he knew what the wise Hermit had meant by saying, 
“ Be patient and he began to wonder again that the 
Hermit could be sorrowful in so beautiful a world. 

One morning the church bells in the village — whose 
ringing was the only sound that ever came from the 
village over the hill — rang so much longer and more 
joyfully than usual, that the Elf Boy asked the Hermit 
why they did so. The Hermit looked in one of his 
books, and answered: 

“It is Easter Day. The village people celebrate 
it on one Sunday every spring.” 

“ May we not go also? ” asked the Elf Boy, and 


3 2 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


as it was the first time he had ever asked to go to the 
village, the Hermit could not refuse to take him. 

The village was glowing with flowers. There were 
many fruit trees, and they, too, were in blossom. 
Every one who passed along the street seemed either 
to wear flowers or to carry them in his hand. The 
people were all entering the churchyard; and here the 
graves, which had looked so gray and cold when the 
Hermit and the Boy had last seen them, were beauti- 
ful with flowers that the village people had planted 
or had strewn over them for Easter. 

The people all passed into the church. But the 
Hermit and the Elf Boy, who never went where there 
was a crowd, stayed outside where the humming-birds 
and bees were flying happily among the flowers. 
Suddenly there came from the church a burst of 
music. To the Elf Boy it seemed the most beautiful 
sound he had ever heard. He put his finger on his 
lip to show the Hermit that he wanted to listen. 
These were the words they sang: 

“7 am He that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I 
am alive for evermore ! ” 

The Boy took hold of the Hermit’s hand and led 
him to the church door, that they might hear still 
better. He was very happy. 

33 


THE BOY WHO DISCOVERED THE SPRING 


“ Oh,” he cried, “ I do not believe that anything 
ever really dies.” 

The Hermit looked down at him and smiled. 
“ Perhaps not,” he said. 

When the music began again, a strange thing hap- 
pened. The Hermit sang the Easter song with the 
others. It was the first time he had sung for many 
years. 


34 



The Brook in the Kings Garden 


T HERE was once a King of a far-away country who 
was a tyrant. He did not care to make the people 
happy, but only to please himself. He was used 
to being obeyed so quickly by those who feared him, 
that he became very angry if any one failed to do as 


35 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


he commanded. It seemed to him that not only 
people should obey him, but animals and plants, and 
everything in the country where he ruled. 

When he was walking in his garden, if he saw a 
plant or a tree that he did not like, he would wave 
his scepter at it, and say “Be gone!” And when he 
next passed that way, it would be gone, for the King’s 
servants, knowing how angry it made him to be 
disobeyed, would quickly remove anything that dis- 
pleased him. In this way the King came to think 
that even the wild things of nature were under his 
control. 

There was a Brook that flowed through one side 
of the King’s garden, after it had come down from a 
high mountain and passed through a meadow and 
along one side of the town. It. was a merry, chattering 
Brook, that made almost any one happy to hear it, 
and along its banks grew lovely willow trees and 
many fine flowers. In the palace garden, of course, 
were the loveliest flowers of all; and the King was 
very fond of walking along the margin of the Brook. 

But one day, while he was walking there, his foot 
slipped a little, so that he stepped into the water; 
and as the water was cold, and he had on very good 
clothes which it might harm, the King grew very 
36 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


angry. He struck the Brook with his scepter, and 
it splashed the water into his face. This, of course, 
angered him all the more, and it seemed to him now 
that the Brook was laughing at him, as it gurgled 
over the stones. So the King lifted up his scepter 
again, and said: “Be gone! I will not have any 
Brook in my kingdom! ” 

When his officers heard this they were very much 
troubled. For they knew that the Brook would not 
obey the King, and they did not know how to make 
believe that it had. They could not hide it or take 
it away. No one knew just where it came from, so 
they could not stop it at the source; and if they 
did so, they knew that it would make a great deal 
of trouble in the town and in the country near by. 
For the Brook not only gave people pleasure by its 
music and its flowers, but it turned mill-wheels, and 
made ponds where people fished, and furnished water 
for people to drink, and made gardens and farms 
fertile, and did many useful things. So the officers 
decided that they would try to keep the King away 
from that part of the garden, hoping that he would 
forget what he had said. 

But he did not forget. When he went out next 
day, and saw the Brook flowing along as merrily as 


37 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


ever, singing over the stones, he said: “ Why is the 
Brook not gone?” When his officers told him 'that 
the Brook would not obey him, he said: ‘‘It must 
obey me. Send for all my servants.” 

So they sent for all his servants, and the King 
said to them: “The Brook is a bad brook; I will 
not have it here. Take it away.” 

So the servants got pails and jars of every kind, 
and began emptying the Brook. But although they 
worked for a great many hours, and filled all the 
tanks in the palace, and poured the water all over 
the garden, the Brook seemed to be as full as ever. 

Then the King said: “Bum it up!” And they 
brought torches, and sheets of cotton dipped in oil, 
so as to make the brightest and hottest flames, and 
they threw these into the Brook. But the Brook 
only laughed as the flames hissed in it, and it carried 
off the black shreds of the burnt cotton, and put out 
all the fire without seeming to work any harder than 
usual, and in a short time was flowing along as clean 
and bright as ever. 

Then the King said: “ Bury it!” And the 
servants brought carts full of dirt, such as they used 
in making embankments around the palace, and 
began to dump these into the Brook. At last it 
38 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


seemed that the King’s will was going to be obeyed, 
for the Brook began to disappear in the great mass 
of dirt that was poured over it. The servants carried 
the dirt farther and farther up the stream, until ht 
last they had choked it up at the point where it flowed 
into the palace grounds. The King thought now that 
it was gone altogether, and went into his palace con- 
tented. 

Now the King had a little daughter, whom he 
loved very much; and when she learned what had been 
done to the Brook, she felt so sorry that she nearly 
cried. For the Brook was one of her dearest friends, 
and she knew how much she would miss it. She lay 
awake for as much as an hour that night, thinking 
about it, and decided that in the morning she would 
go to the Good Gray Woman, and ask her what could 
be done. 

The Good Gray Woman lived in a hut just outside 
the palace wall, and there was a tiny gate leading 
through the wall from her house, which had been 
made so that people from the palace could go to see 
her; for she was very wise, and knew the water-sprites 
and the flower-sprites, and all the other creatures that 
most people never see, and she was always ready to 
help any one in trouble. 


39 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


So, very early in the morning the little Princess 
knocked at the Good Gray Woman’s door, and when 
it opened she told her friend about the Brook. “ I 
am sure my father would not have done it,” she said, 
“ if he had known how good the Brook was, and how 
much we all thought of it. Will you not go to him, 
and tell him about it? He will believe you.” 

The Good Gray Woman thought a minute. Then 
she said: 

“ I will not go myself, for I do not think I could 
tell the King anything that you can not tell him 
just as well. But I will send some friends of mine 
instead, who I am quite sure can make him understand. 
What time does the King take his seat on the throne 
to hear those who have anything to say to him?” 

“ At nine o’clock every morning,” said the Princess. 

“ Very well,” said the Good Gray Woman. “ If 
you are there at nine o’clock, you will see my friends 
there, too.” 

The Princess could not think what friends the 
Good Gray Woman would send; but she believed 
her, and returned to the palace. 

At nine o’clock the King took his seat on his throne* 
and asked whether any one had come to see him. 
The Princess was close at hand, waiting to see what 


40 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


would happen. As soon as the King had spoken, 
she saw in front of the throne two little winged crea- 
tures, that seemed to have come there by magic, for 
no one had seen them enter the room. They hung 
in the air before the King like butterflies. One of 
them was gray, like a bit of floating mist, but it was 
also streaked with all the colors of the rainbow. The 
other was of a deep blue color that was almost green 
when the sun shone on it. 

“ We are water-sprites,” said these little creatures 
to the King, “ and we have come to see your Majesty 
on important business.” 

“ Very good,” said the King. He had never seen 
such creatures before, and found them very interesting. 

“ I,” said the first sprite, “ belong to a water-drop 
from a cloud that was hanging over your garden this 
morning, and I was also in the beautiful rainbow that 
your Majesty was admiring yesterday. I came to 
speak to you about the Brook.” 

“About the Brook?” said the King. “ What do 
you know about it? ” 

“ Why, I used to live in it,” said the sprite. “ Then 
I went on down to the ocean, and then the sun carried 
me up to the cloud country. And the cloud that I 
now belong to was all ready to give your garden a little 


41 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


shower this morning, when we saw that the Brook 
was not there. This made all the drops that used to 
belong to the Brook feel very bad, for we hoped to 
get back to it again. So I came to ask you about it.” 

“ Dear me! ” said the King. “ I had no idea that 
the Brook had anything to do with you. I shall have 
to think about it. And who are you?” he said to 
the other sprite. 

“ I belong to a water-drop from the ocean,” said 
the sprite. “I, too, once lived in the Brook, and 
have been waiting all night for the other drops that 
it always brings us. But they stopped coming, and 
we all felt very sorry. So I was sent to see what was 
the matter.” 

“ Dear me! ” said the King again. “ I had no idea 
that the Brook had anything to do with you. I shall 
have to think about it. But you will have to come 
and see me some other time.” 

This was what the King always said when he did 
not feel sure whether he wanted to do what people 
were asking him to. When the sprites saw that he 
would say nothing more, they flew away as silently as 
they had come. 

The Princess waited all day, hoping that her father 
would think about what the sprites had told him, and 


42 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


command the Brook to be brought back again, for the 
sake of the cloud-drops and the ocean-drops. But the 
fact was he soon forgot all about it, and did nothing 
at all. So the Princess went again to the Good Gray 
Woman, and asked her if she could send any other 
friends to help her. 

“ Oh, yes,” said the Good Gray Woman. “ They 
will come to-morrow at the same time.” 

So the next morning when the King took his seat 
on his throne as usual, and asked if any one wished to 
see him, there were two more sprites hovering in the 
air before him. One of these was gray like a pebble- 
stone, and the other looked as though it were covered 
with dark brown velvet, like a caterpillar. 

“ And who are you? ” said the King. 

“ We are earth-sprites,” said the first one. “ I 
belong to the little stones in your Majesty’s garden. 
We were all being polished very beautifully by the 
Brook, and made ready for all sorts of pretty things. 
But now we are covered with dirt, and we can not hear 
the Brook singing above us; so we have come to ask 
if it can not come back again.” 

“Humph!” said the King. “More friends of the 
Brook, are you? ” 

“Yes,” said the second sprite. “ I belong to the 


43 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


rich, dark soil that lies around the roots of the trees 
in your Majesty’s garden. The Brook watered us 
every day, so that we could feed all the growing things 
that need us. But now we are getting dry and hard, 
the roots complain that we do not care for them as 
we used to; and we do not know what to do.” 

“It is very strange how much that Brook was 
doing,” said the King. “We shall have to see about 
this. Perhaps we can get another Brook. Come and 
see me some other time.” 

So the little Princess again hoped that the King 
would now remember the Brook and have it brought 
back. But all that he did was to tell the gardener to 
take better care of the trees, for he heard that they 
were complaining of the dry season; and then he 
forgot all about it. The Princess hardly dared hope 
that the Good Gray Woman would have any other 
friends to send to help her, but she tried once again. 

“Oh, yes,” said the Good Gray Woman, “there 
are plenty more.” 

So the next morning, sure enough, there were two 
more sprites when the King sat down on his throne. 
These were the most beautiful of all. One of them 
had wings like the petals of a violet, and a body like 
a yellow crocus. The other was all in green. 


44 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


“ I don’t want to see any more sprites,” said the 
King, “unless they have something new to talk about.” 
But he did not know just how to send them away; so 
he was obliged to listen when they spoke. 

“ I am a flower-sprite,” said the first one, “ and 
have always lived in your Majesty’s garden, by the 
edge of the Brook. We thought you were very fond 
of us, and came to tell you that, now that the Brook 
has gone, we are fast withering; and no new flowers 
will come up until it returns.” 

“ And I,” said the other sprite, “ belong to the 
grass that grew at the edge of the Brook, and have 
come to tell you that all the grasses are missing it so 
much, that we think you will surely have pity on us.” 

The King would not answer these sprites, because 
he was tired of making them all the same answer, 
and really did not know what to say. But when they 
had flown off, he said to himself : 

“ I can not be bothered with so many sprites. If 
they keep coming I shall have nothing else to do but 
hear about the Brook and its friends. I wish it had 
never been buried.” 

Now this was just what the Princess was waiting 
for. She clapped her hands, crying: 

“ Then can we not have it back again? ” 

45 


THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


“ I don’t know how we could get it back,” said the 
King. ‘‘But if you wish, you may ask the Good 
Gray Woman what we had better do.” 

The Princess ran off at once to do as the King said. 
When the Good Gray Woman heard about it she 
answered : 

“ Tell the King, your father, to go walking with you 
on the palace wall, and he will see what has become of 
the Brook.” 

So the Princess took the King by the hand, and 
they went walking on the top of the palace wall. 
When they came to the place where the Brook had 
flowed under the wall, they saw a very strange thing. 
The Brook had not been buried at all! When its 
channel in the palace garden had been choked with the 
dirt put there by the King’s servants, it had simply 
turned aside, and made another channel outside the 
wall; and there it was, flowing along as merrily as 
ever. Already some little flowers had sprung up along 
its new banks, and the grass was green all about it. 
Many children from the town were playing there, 
feeling very thankful that, instead of flowing into the 
King’s garden, the Brook was out in the big free 
garden where they could all enjoy it. 

When the King had seen all this, he called his 
46 



Many children from the town were playing there Page 46 












' 




THE BROOK IN THE KING’S GARDEN 


servants, and told them to take out all the dirt they 
had put into the Brook’s channel when they had tried 
to bury it. And they did so. But the Brook liked 
its new channel very well’ so, although it sent a little 
branch to flow in the old place through the King’s 
garden, carrying water to the flowers and trees that 
had missed it, it never really came back, but went on 
flowing in the place where it had found so many new 
friends. It soon made a path to the sea, and continued 
to send its drops to help make the ocean and the 
clouds and the rainbows, as well as to polish the 
stones and water the flowers along its banks. And 
although I have heard nothing of it for a long time, 
I am quite sure that it is flowing there merrily still* 


47 



The Hunt for the Beautiful 


T HERE was once a boy named Karl, who lived in a 
little village in a valley, far from all the great cities. 
It was a simple and quiet village, but very pleasant to 
see, because of the many flowers that grew in the 
people’s gardens, and of the beautiful hills that lay 
just behind it. In the middle of the village was an 
old chapel, and as the boy’s father was the sexton, 
their little house and garden were next door. The 
chapel was a dim, restful place, with stained-glass 
48 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


windows, which had been made hundreds of years 
before, and had figures of saints and angels shimmering 
in them. Very often, when Karl was tired of both 
work and play, he would go in and sit there, and 
would sometimes fall asleep looking at the lovely 
pictures in the windows. 

There was a particular reason why he was so much 
interested in the pictures, and that was that he wished 
to be a great artist. Before he had been old enough 
to read, he had drawn pictures wherever he could find 
a place to put them, and nothing made him so happy 
as to have a present of colored crayons or paints. 
Then, as he grew older, whatever money he could 
save for himself — which was not much, for his father 
and mother were poor — he spent in paying for lessons 
in drawing and painting from whoever could be found 
to teach him in the village. 

But as the village was so small, Karl wished very 
much to go to see the world, and to study painting 
with great teachers. The village people thought that 
he was already a wonderful painter, because he could 
sit down before a flower, or a house, or even a child’s 
face, and make a copy of it so good that no one could 
think how it might be better. They could not see, 
therefore, why Karl was not satisfied. But he 


49 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


always told them that there were better pictures in the 
world than either he or they had ever seen, and that 
if they could once see them, they would never again 
be pleased with his. 

“ Well, in that case,” the people answered, “ why 
should we want to see them ? If what you say is true, 
we should be less happy than we are now. We are 
pleased with your pictures, and you should be pleased 
with them, too.” 

“ No,” said Karl. “ I can not be pleased with 
anything until it is the very best I can do, and I 
believe I can do still better. If I could only see the 
most beautiful things in the world, I could paint them, 
at any rate. I have painted everything in this place, 
— the old chapel, and the hills behind the village, and 
the flowers in our garden, and the prettiest children. 
But all the time I have known that these are not the 
most beautiful sights. Somewhere is the most beauti- 
ful sight in the world. I shall never be happy till I 
have seen it.” 

So they could not make him believe that they were 
right, and, although he enjoyed his work, he was never 
pleased with it when it was done. At last there came 
a time when he thought he could go away to see the 
world. His brothers were now old enough to be of 


5 ° 





w ) 




KG;, 


So one morning he bade them all good-bye Page 5/ 










THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


help to his father; and his mother, though she would 
be very lonely without him, seemed almost as eager 
as he was that he should make his great journey. 
So one morning he bade them all good-by, and 
started down the road that led into the big world. 

There was really no one but Karl himself who 
knew why it was that he felt so sure he must go away. 
Something had happened more than a year before, 
which he had kept secret but had never forgotten. 
One day he had been working hard at a picture, as he 
always did in his spare minutes, and had grown tired 
and discouraged, because when it was finished it was 
not as beautiful as he had hoped. So he had gone 
into the little old chapel to rest and comfort himself, 
as I have said that he did so often. 

There was one window in the chapel that Karl had 
always thought especially beautiful. In it was the 
figure of a great white angel, whom he always called 
the Angel of Beauty, not knowing what her real 
name might be. He knelt under the window, where 
he could look up into the face of this Angel, and 
thought how fine it would be if she could only speak 
to him, and give him a message, as the angels and 
saints had done in earlier times. 

“ I know what I would say to her,” he said to 


5 1 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


himself. “ I would ask her: When can I ever paint 
the beautiful picture that I am always trying to?” 

Then a very wonderful thing happened. Karl had 
asked this question aloud, because he was so much in 
earnest about it, and knew that no one else was in the 
chapel to hear him. Now, as he looked at the face of 
the angel in the window, he suddenly saw her lips 
open; and then, before he realized what it could mean, 
she was speaking to him. This was what he heard: 

“ When you have seen the most beautiful sight in 
the world.” 

That was all. Karl asked more questions, and 
begged the angel to tell him how he could find the 
most beautiful sight, but she never spoke to him 
again, though sometimes afterward, when he would 
go to the little chapel to rest after a hard day’s work, 
he would think that he saw her lips breaking into a 
kindly smile, as she looked down upon him in the dim 
light. He never told any one, not even his father and 
mother, of the words that she had spoken to him, but 
he never ceased to think of them; and this was why 
he was so eager to set out on his journey, as we have 
seen that he did at last. 

It would take a very long time to tell about all of 
Karl’s travels, during the months that followed his 

5 2 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


going away from home. On the whole, though he saw 
many fine sights and made new friends, it was a 
wearisome journey. He did not have money enough 
to travel in comfort, and sometimes he would find 
that he had spent everything he had, and would be 
obliged to stop somewhere for a few weeks until he 
could earn enough to take him farther. Sometimes 
he would walk many miles, from one city to another, 
and arrive there with his feet so sore and his back so 
tired and aching, that it seemed to him he wanted only 
one thing — his little bed in his little room in the old 
home. 

But all this would not have mattered, if only he 
could have found the thing for which he had set out. 
It always seemed to be just a little distance ahead of 
him. At first he thought that he would be most 
likely to find it in the galleries where the paintings 
and statues of all the greatest artists were collected. 
So he visited these in the different cities, and once or 
twice he found a painting or a statue so wonderfully 
beautiful that he exclaimed: “ Surely this is the most 
beautiful thing in the world! ” But always some one 
said to him: “ No; wait till you have seen such-and- 
such a picture in such-and-such a gallery. That is 
without doubt more beautiful than this. ” So he would 


53 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


go on hopefully to the other gallery, but always with 
the same uncertainty as to whether he had found what 
he was searching for. 

After many weeks spent in this way, Karl decided 
that it was not in pictures or statues, but in beautiful 
scenes of nature, that he was most likely to find what 
he sought. For whenever he saw a lovely picture of 
a lake, or a mountain, or a valley, it would occur to 
him that if the picture were so beautiful, the landscape 
itself must be still more so. So, as the summer was 
now coming on, he visited the loveliest countries that 
he could hear of, where the mountains were covered 
with snow the year round, but the valleys between 
were filled with wonderful flowers, and brooks went 
singing down the slopes and emptied themselves into 
lakes as blue as the sky. He had never dreamed of 
anything so beautiful as some of these places, yet the 
same thing happened that had happened before. 
Whenever he would say to another traveler that he 
thought this must be the most beautiful sight in the 
world, the traveler would say: “ No. I have seen 
one still better ; you will find it in the Valley of 
So-and-so.” So Karl would take up his journey 
again, always with new hope. 

Meantime he did not get good news from home. 


54 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


His mother wrote him that his father was dead, 
and this made him very sad. Then she wrote that it 
had been a hard winter in their neighborhood, so that 
his brothers had found it difficult to earn as much as 
usual, and they had had to sell some of their land to 
buy fuel to keep them warm. But she did not ask 
Karl to come home, for she was as anxious as he was 
that he should become a great artist, and was sure that 
he would succeed if he only had good luck on his 
journey. So she told him to go on, and not to be 
troubled about the things that were happening at 
home, for she would not have written of them at all 
if it had not been to explain why she could not send 
him any money. 

So Karl continued his journey a little farther, and 
tried to keep a good heart. At last he felt more 
certain than ever before that he was going to find 
the object of his search, for a number of travelers 
had told him that he ought to go to see a certain 
castle on a certain mountain, in a certain distant 
country, where the view was undoubtedly the most 
beautiful in the world. So many people told him 
this, that Karl felt now that all he had to do was to get 
money enough to take him to that country, when his 
journey would be ended; but this was hard to do. 


55 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


So he stopped in the city where he was, and found 
regular work to do, copying little pictures for a man 
who sold them; and all the money he earned, he saved 
for the expense of his journey. 

One day, when he thought that he had almost 
enough, he received a letter. It was from the village 
where his home was, but not from his mother. A 
neighbor wrote to him, telling him that his mother 
was too sick to write for herself, and that his brothers 
were sick, too; for there was a fever in their valley, 
and half the people in the village had caught it. The 
neighbor said that he did not think Karl’s mother 
would die, if she had good care, and that he was doing 
all he could for her and for the brothers, but there was 
no money with which to buy good food or medicines for 
them, and their near friends were almost as poor as 
they. So he had decided to write, although Karl’s 
mother would not agree to it, asking him to come 
home. 

It was pretty hard to receive a letter like this, 
when he was almost ready to finish the journey that 
had been so long and hard. Karl thought about it for 
a long time; but of course he decided that there was 
but one thing to do — he must go home where his 
mother needed him. He was now not so very far 
56 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


away, and the money that he had saved for the longer 
journey would be enough to buy a good many comforts 
for the sick ones. So he bade good-by to the man who 
had employed him, and took the quickest way he 
could find toward home. 

Although it had been a little hard to change his 
plans, when Karl was once on his way home it was 
surprising how happy he felt about it. He did not 
know how much he had missed his mother and his 
brothers and the old place, until his face was turned 
toward them again. So instead of feeling sad about 
going in that direction, he could hardly wait to come 
in sight of the little village; and when he had really 
arrived in it, he could not wait to get a sight of his 
mother, but ran down the street as fast as his feet 
would carry him, until he reached the door of their 
little house. Sure enough! there was his mother at 
the door to meet him; for she was recovering from the 
fever, and through the window had seen him running 
down the street. 

Then Karl told her about his journey, and why he 
had come home; that he had not yet found the most 
beautiful sight in the world, but that he now felt more 
willing to wait for it. “ For,” said he, “I have seen 
many beautiful things, and I can make pictures of 

57 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


them. Some day I may be able to finish the journey. 
But I am so happy to be at home again and to see 
you, that I do not feel now as if I cared about any- 
thing else.” 

Then his mother took him by the hand, and they 
walked together out into the little garden, where 
everything was gay with the late summer flowers. 
“ Why, dear me! ” said Karl, “ I never knew that we 
had such a beautiful little garden! Have you changed 
it any since I have been away? ” 

“ No,” said his mother, “ but it grows a little 
better every year, even when left to itself.” 

“ It is certainly the prettiest garden I ever saw,” 
said Karl. “ And look at that view of the hills behind 
the village! How beautiful it is with the afternoon 
lights and shadows lying on it! Why, mother, was 
that view of the hills always there just in the same 
way? ” 

“ I think it must have been,” said his mother, 
smiling at him. “You always thought it was a pretty 
sight, Karl.” 

“Yes,” said Karl, “ but nothing half so beautiful 
as this. And you too, mother, you have grown 
lovelier than you ever were before, in spite of your 
having been sick and poor. If I were a great artist, I 
58 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


should paint your portrait and make my fortune by it.” 

His mother smiled again, not believing what he 
said, but being pleased that he should think so. 

“ Mother,” said Karl again, “ I will paint your 
picture, sitting here in the garden, with the flowers 
blossoming about you, and the view of the hills behind 
you. If I can only make it seem as beautiful to 
others as it does to me, it will be the best picture I 
have ever made.” 

So the next morning Karl made his mother sit in 
the garden, and then brought his paints and went to 
work. He was afraid that everything would not look 
so beautiful as it had the night before, when he had 
first come home, but it did. He worked faster and 
more joyfully than he had ever worked before, hoping 
that he would be able to put into the picture the 
wonderful new beauty that he saw all around him. 

At sunset the picture was almost finished, and 
Karl sat alone in front of it, for his mother had gone 
into the house to get supper. He was feeling a little 
tired and discouraged, as he nearly always did after 
a long day’s work. Perhaps, he thought, it would be 
impossible for him to make other people see what he 
was seeing, and the picture would be nothing, after 
all, but a pleasure to his mother and himself. 


59 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


“ As soon as it gets too dark to work on it any 
longer,” he said, “ I shall go into the chapel to see my 
Angel of Beauty. I am sure she will comfort me, as 
she always used to do.” 

Just then he thought he heard some one beside him, 
and when he looked up quickly, there stood the white 
Angel herself at his side, just as he had seen her so 
often in the chapel window! Karl was so surprised 
that he could not think of anything to say, but sat 
looking up at her with big, wondering eyes. 

“ I have been here helping you all day,” she said, 
“ but I thought it would comfort you more if you 
could see me.” Then she touched his hand lightly 
with her hand, and Karl went to work again with his 
brush, which now seemed to do its work with a wonder- 
ful skill that he had never noticed in it before. “ Ah,” 
he said happily, “ that was the color I wanted all the 
time! And that is the light on the hills that I saw 
last evening and thought so beautiful! ” 

Then, resting from his work a minute, he turned 
his face again toward the Angel, and said to her: 

“Will this really be the picture that I have wanted 
to paint for so long? ” 

“ Yes,” said the Angel, “ it will; for at last you 
have found the most beautiful sight in the world.” 

60 


THE HUNT FOR THE BEAUTIFUL 


“ And it was here all the time? ” said Karl. 

“ What is here does not make the picture,” said the 
Angel, “ but what you see.” Then she faded away as 
quietly as she had come, and Karl saw that his picture 
was finished. 

This was the picture that made all the world know 
that Karl was a great artist; but how it came to be 
painted has never been told before. 



The Boy Who Went Out of the World 

T HERE was once an unhappy boy, who thought 
that this world was not a very nice place. He 
was not a poor boy, for he lived with his father in a 
large house, and had a great many toys, and a fine 
garden in which to play, and all that he wanted to eat. 

62 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


But, of course, as he was not thankful for all these 
things, they could not make him happy. 

The thing about this world that the boy partic- 
ularly disliked was that it was so stupidly regular. 
You always knew when the sun would rise, and 
when it would set; and you knew that when it set 
— and sometimes even sooner — nurse would come 
and tell you that you must eat your supper and 
get ready for bed. The boy had never yet seen the 
time when he wanted to go to bed at the time nurse 
wanted him to. And it was just so about getting up, 
and being ready for breakfast, and being ready for 
school, and coming in to wash your hands in time for 
dinner: everything went round and round in the same 
way, and you could hardly ever do what you wanted 
to, because it was time for something else. The boy 
thought that on this account it was probably the 
worst world ever made. 

Sometimes the trouble was of the opposite kind. 
If you 'wanted the sun to rise a little earlier than 
usual, it would never do it, and if you wanted Christmas 
to come in the middle of November, there was no way 
to manage it. So you had to wait for a great many 
things, and this made you impatient. It was par- 
ticularly bad to have to wait to be ten years old, for 

63 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


the boy had been told by his father of a good many 
fine things he could have, and a good many other fine 
things that he could do, when he should be ten years 
old. Nothing had ever been so slow in coming as that 
tenth birthday, and the nearer it came — according to 
the calendar — the slower it was about it. The decent 
thing for a birthday to do would have been to come a 
little faster all the time, and finally, when it was only 
a week away, to hurry so fast that it would be there 
before you knew it. But it did nothing of the kind. 
So a week before it was to be there', the boy asked his 
father if he would please hurry up his birthday in some 
way, or, if he could not do that, would he please buy 
him another one that could be delivered at once. But 
his father shook his head, and showed the boy the 
calendar again, and told him that birthdays could not 
only not be hurried, but that they actually came 
more slowly the more you tried to make them hurry. 
So that was only another proof of what a poor world 
this is to live in. 

At last, three nights before his birthday was really 
to come, the boy made up his mind that he could not 
stand it any longer. When his nurse thought he had 
gone to sleep, he was out of his bed and standing at the 
window ledge, looking up at the stars. They shone so 
64 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


brightly that it seemed as if you' could reach out and 
touch them, and the boy, remembering that each of 
them was a great world like this, made up his mind 
that if he could only get to one of them, he could 
certainly live there more happily than on the earth. 
He had never thought before that it might be possible 
to do this, and he was not sure now how to go about 
it; but he believed that his father’s secretary could 
tell him. His father had a remarkably wise secretary, 
who knew a great many things that he never told, and 
as he studied the stars a great deal, it seemed likely 
that he might know how to get to them. He was not 
particularly fond of the boy, but he was very fond of 
the boy’s dog; and the boy thought that if he should 
offer to give him the dog, the secretary would tell him 
anything he wanted to know. 

So he went very quietly through the long hall, and 
knocked at the secretary’s door. 

“ Come in,” said the secretary. 

“I want to see you about something very impor- 
tant,” said the boy. “ I am so tired of this world that 
I have decided to go to some other world, if I possibly 
can, and I thought perhaps you could show me how 
to get to one of the stars. If you will, you can have 
my dog, and anything else of mine you want, for of 

65 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


course I should not have any more use for them.” 
The secretary did not say anything for a long time. 
Then he said: 

“ I suppose I could let you have my Light Magnet.” 

“ And what is that? ” asked the boy. 

“It is a very strong Magnet,” said the secretary, 
“ that works with light. If you take it in your hand 
and hold it where a lamp can shine on it, you will be 
drawn across the room to the light so quickly that you 
hardly know what has happened, but so gently that 
you are not hurt at all. I have always thought that 
I could draw myself up to the moon or a star, if I 
should try; but as I never wanted to leave the earth, 
I have not found out surely.” 

“That would be fine!” cried the boy, clapping 
his hands; and when the secretary was sure that he 
meant what he said, he went to his desk and took out 
the Light Magnet. It looked very much like a round 
stone, about the size of a large paper-weight or ink- 
stand, and in the center of it was a spot like a mirror, 
which reflected brilliantly any light that shone on it, 
and made it look as if it had a heart of fire. 

The boy took the precious thing back to his room, 
and, having first put on his warm clothing and his 
overcoat, so that he would not be cold while traveling, 
66 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


he threw open the window, and sat down on the ledge 
with his feet hanging outside. Then he turned the 
Magnet straight toward the star that seemed nearest 
and brightest, and waited impatiently to see what 
would happen. At first nothing happened, and the 
boy was afraid the secretary was mistaken in thinking 
that the Magnet would work with a light so far away; 
but in another minute he felt it giving a little tug in 
his hands, and when he held on to it tightly, the tug 
pulled at his arms and then at his whole body, and 
before he really knew what was happening, he had been 
drawn off the window ledge, and was moving through 
the air like a bird. 

At first the boy was almost frightened, when he 
looked down and saw the lights of his father’s house 
and of the whole city growing dimmer underneath 
him; but when he looked up, and saw the star seeming 
already to come nearer, he was glad that he was 
leaving the earth, and shouted “ Hurrah! ” to himself, 
as he moved swiftly along. 

Of course he had no way to measure time, so he 
could not tell how long it was before his journey ended; 
but it was certainly a wonderfully short time when the 
star stopped looking like a big light, and instead 
showed like a world, with the sun shining on it, and 
67 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


with hills and valleys and cities, like the earth he had 
left. Then in a few minutes more the boy alighted 
on the ground. “Hurrah!” he said again. “Now 
I am in another world.” 

He now walked some distance before he met 
any one, for it was in the open country that he had 
arrived. At last a man appeared coming toward 
him, and when they came near each other both of them 
politely took off their hats. 

“You seem to be a stranger,” said the man. 

“ Yes,” said the boy, “ I have just come from the 
world, and landed on your star. Did you ever meet 
any one from the world before? ” 

“ Why, this is the world,” said the man. “ I guess 
you must mean that you have come from one of the 
stars.” 

The boy did not want to be rude, so he said, “ Well, 
I suppose it depends on how you look at it.” 

“ And why did you come away from your star? ” 
asked the man. 

“ Oh, I did not like it at all,” said the boy. “ For 
one thing, the sun rises and sets every day at about 
the same time, and you have to go to bed when it sets 
and get up when it rises; and I thought I should like 
to go to a world where the sun shines all the time. 

68 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


So I’m very glad to find it shining here, although it is 
night.” 

“ But it isn’t night at all,” said the man. “ It is 
the middle of the day with us. After a while the sun 
will set, just as it does with you.” 

“ Bless me! ” said the boy. “I’m sorry to hear 
that. I had no idea that it would be so in any world 
but ours. But there were other reasons why I didn’t 
like our world. The years were so very long, and 
you couldn’t have a Christmas or a birthday until 
just the day for it came round.” 

“ How long were your years? ” asked the man. 

“ Three hundred and sixty-five days,” said the boy. 

“ Don’t you think that is a pretty long time? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know,” said the man. “ Our years 
are four hundred and seventy days long.” 

“ My goodness! ” said the boy. “And do you have 
only one birthday in a year?” 

“ Of course,” said the man. “ How could you 
have more? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said the boy, “ but I thought 
perhaps up here you could have a birthday whenever 
you wanted it to come.” 

“ Why, we go around the sun just the way you 
do,” said the man, “and that is what makes years.” 

69 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


“ And do you have to wait a long time for winter 
to come when you want the snow, and then another 
long time for the summer when you want the green 
grass and the flowers? I thought perhaps up here you 
could have summer one day, and winter the next, if 
you happened to want it so.” 

The man shook his head. “ I don’t know just 
where you would find a world like that,” he said. 
“ But surely you will not find it here.” 

By this time the boy felt pretty much discouraged. 

“ Well,” he said, “ I think I shall have to try 
another world, for this one seems to be even worse 
than the one I came from.” 

So he thanked the man for all he had told him, 
and walked about a little more, eating, as he walked, 
from fruit trees that grew by the roadside. Then 
when he was tired he lay down and went to sleep. 

When he awoke it was dark, and the stars were 
shining. “ Now is my time,” he said, “ to try another 
world.” He brought out his Light Magnet and 
pointed it at the star that seemed brightest, and 
presently he was traveling toward it as fast as he had 
the night before. 

This second star proved to be a rather better- 
looking world than the first one, and the boy was 


70 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


pleased to find cold weather there, for it had been 
summer in the other world, and he thought it very 
pleasant to have winter come in the middle of summer 
in this way. But when he began to ask questions of 
the first man he met, he was disappointed again. 
“ This is very pleasant winter weather,” he said 
politely, “ but I suppose you will soon get tired of 
it and have something warmer? ” 

“ It would not do us any good to get tired of it,” 
said the man of the second star, “ for we shall not 
have any warm weather for about three hundred days.” 

“Three hundred days!” said the boy. “Why, 
that is almost a year.” 

“ Oh, no, I beg your pardon,” said the man of the 
second star, “ a year is six hundred days with us.” 

“ And you can’t possibly have any summer until 
the time for it comes? ” 

“ Why, how could we? ” 

“ And you can have a birthday only once in six 
hundred days? ” 

“ That is true.” 

“ Then if I lived here,” said the boy sadly, “ I 
should not be anywhere near ten years old. Can you 
not tell me of any star that doesn’t behave in so 
stupidly regular a way? ” 

7i 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


“ I don’t think I can,” said the man of the second 
star. “ But you might try a comet. They do not 
behave in quite the same way that the stars do. I 
saw one last night that you might try if you care to.” 

The boy thanked him, and once more lay down to 
rest until nightfall. Then he saw the comet, riding in 
the sky with a very long tail, and turned his Light 
Magnet on it. Pretty soon he was going toward the 
comet as fast as he had gone toward the stars. 

The comet did not look like the other worlds. 
Part of it was on fire, and the boy was frightened 
when he saw this; but the part on which he alighted 
was cool, though it seemed to be made of cinders from 
fires that had been burning not long before. There 
weie no fields or cities, so far as he could see, and it 
did not look like a pleasant place to live in. At first, 
indeed, it seemed that there were no people on it, but 
after he had walked a long way the boy found a hermit, 
and the hermit asked him — as the men in the stars had 
done — where he had come from. Then the boy 
explained that he had come to the comet because he 
had not been able to find any other kind of world 
that did not go regularly around the sun, and have 
long, stupid seasons and years. 

“ Well,” said the old hermit, when he had heard 


72 



He found a hermit Page J2 














































\ 





THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


what the boy had to say, “I’m afraid you have come 
to the wrong place again.” 

“ Oh, dear! ” said the boy. “You don’t mean to 
tell me that a comet is as regular as a star. I have 
always heard that you never could tell when one 
would come in sight, or how long it would be before 
it would come again.” 

“ That,” said the hermit, “ is only because you 
could not see very far. It is true that comets travel 
very differently from stars, and have different seasons, 
and all that sort of thing. But you can be pretty 
sure about them if you know their habits. For 
instance, this comet can now be seen on the earth 
where you came from. But according to your way 
of counting time, it will be two hundred and seventy 
years before it has gone around its course and come 
back to the place where your people can see it again.” 

The boy’s eyes grew as big as saucers, so surprised 
was he to hear this. 

“ Then your years,” he said “ must be two hundred 
and seventy times as long as ours! ” 

“Yes,” said the hermit. “ We go through a great 
many different parts of the sky, and we have all kinds 
of seasons that you do not know anything about, and it 
is all very interesting. Perhaps you would like to stay 


73 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


on and see things for fifty or a hundred years or so. 
But, after all, we go just as steadily and faithfully along 
our own course as your world or any of the others.” 

“ And in all the parts of the sky that you have been 
through,” asked the boy, “have you never seen any 
kind of world that went where it pleased, and had 
no regular course of its own that it had to keep to? ” 
The wise hermit thought for a minute, then he shook 
his head. “ Only broken pieces of worlds,” he said, 
“ and they soon bum up or explode.” 

The boy was almost ready to cry with disappoint- 
ment, but he would not do so before the hermit. 

“ I think I will go back to my own world,” he 
said. “ It seems to be as good as any I can find. 
Do you think you could show me where it is, when 
night comes, so that I shall not make a mistake and 
go to one of the stars? ” 

“ Yes,” said the hermit, “ I can show you to-night. 
But we are going so fast that in a day or two we shall 
soon be altogether out of sight of your world, and I 
do not know how you would get back to it then, 
except by waiting the two hundred and seventy 
years.” 

“ Then I will start the first minute I can,” said the 
boy, “ for if I waited all that time, there would be no 


74 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


one left at home to know me, and besides I should be 
so old that I don’t think I could make the journey.’ 

So the moment it grew dark enough on the comet 
to see the stars come out in the sky, the wise hermit 
pointed to one of them that was low on the edge of the 
horizon, and told the boy that that star was really his 
own world; and the boy, after thanking him for his 
kindness, turned his Magnet toward it, and was soon 
setting out on his journey home. As he went, he 
thought for the first time that it was fortunate that his 
world did go about so regularly, otherwise he could 
never have told where to find it, and might have had 
to wander from star to star all the rest of his life. 

The boy now felt some fear that he might alight 
at another part of the world from that in which his 
father lived. For all he knew, it might be the oppo- 
site side of the earth that was facing the comet. 
But fortunately it was not. It happened to be the 
very town in which he lived that he saw lying beneath 
him as he came dropping down out of the sky; and in 
fifteen minutes after he alighted, he was walking into 
the yard of his father’s house. 

The secretary came to the door to meet him. 

** So you have come back? ” he said. 

41 Yes,” said the boy. “ Your Magnet is a very 


75 


THE BOY WHO WENT OUT OF THE WORLD 


nice thing, and I am much obliged for it; but as I 
could not find any other world that suited me any better 
than this, I have come back, and shall return your 
Magnet if you will give me back my dog.” 

“ Certainly,” said the secretary. “ And it is very 
fortunate that you returned just when you did. For 
your birthday supper is all ready for you, as every- 
body thought you would surely come home in time 
for that. If you had not been in the world before 
twelve o’clock to-night, when your birthday will be 
over, I do not see that you would ever have got to be 
ten years old.” 

“ How queer! ” said the boy. “ I never thought 
of that.” And, as he could now smell the birthday 
supper, he went directly in to eat it. 


7 6 



The Palace Made by Music 


M ANY hundreds of years ago there was a kingdom 
in a distant country, ruled by a good king who 
was known everywhere to be rich and powerful and 
great. But although the capital was a large and beau- 
tiful city, and the king was surrounded by nobles and 
princes almost as rich and powerful as he, there was 
one very strange thing noticed by every one who came 


77 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


into the kingdom : the king had no palace. He lived 
in a plain house near the edge of the city, not half as 
large or fine-looking as many of those belonging to his 
subjects. And he had lived there for a good many 
years. 

Of course there was a reason why the kingdom had 
no palace. It had not always been so. Years before, 
in the reign of the present king’s father, there had stood 
in the midst of the capital city perhaps the most beauti- 
ful palace in the world. It was a very old building, — 
so old that no one knew when it had been built; and 
it was so large that, although people often tried to 
count the number of rooms it contained, they always 
grew tired before they had finished. The walls were 
of white marble, with splendid columns on all four 
sides, and behind the columns, in spaces cut into the 
marble walls, were pictures in bright colors that 
people came from distant countries to see. No one 
knew who had built the palace, or painted the pictures 
on its walls; for it had been the treasure of the kings 
and people of the kingdom for a longer time than 
their history told anything about. 

Then, when the present king was but a little child, 
the palace had been destroyed. On a festival day, 
when the royal family and the greater part of the citizens 
78 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


were marching in a procession outside the city, there had 
come a great earthquake. All over the kingdom the 
people heard the rumbling and felt the ground shaking 
around them, but they had no idea what a terrible 
thing had happened, until they came to the city. 
Then they found that the earth had opened and 
swallowed up the palace in one great crash. Not so 
much as a single block of the marble remained. The 
crumbled earth fell into the opening, covering the 
ruins out of sight, and leaving a great rough piece 
of ground like that in a desert, instead of the beautiful 
spot that had always been there in the center of the 
city. 

Every one felt thankful, first of all, that the king 
and all his family had been outside the building when 
the earthquake came, but in spite of this they could 
not help mourning deeply over the loss of the palace. 
The king himself was so saddened by it that he grew 
old much sooner than he would otherwise have done, 
and died not many years later. It seemed useless to- 
try to build another palace that would satisfy those 
who had seen the splendor of the old one, and no one 
tried. When the young prince became king, although 
he could not remember how the palace looked in which 
he had been bom, yet he had heard so much of its 


79 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 

"beauty that he mourned over its loss as deeply as his 
father, and would not allow any of his nobles or 
counselors to propose such a thing as the building of 
a new one. So he continued to live in the plain 
house near the outskirts of the city, never going near 
the great empty space in the center of the capital. 
And this was how he came to be the only king in the 
world without a palace. 

But although every one agreed that it was useless 
to try to build a new palace in the way in which 
-other buildings were made, there were always some who 
hoped for a new one which should be no less splendid 
than the old. The reason for this was a strange legend 
that was written in the oldest books of the kingdom. 
This legend related that the beautiful old palace had 
been made in a single day, not having been built at 
all, but having been raised up by the sound of music. 
In those early days, it was said, there was music far 
more wonderful than any now known. Men had for- 
gotten about it, little by little, as they grew more 
interested in other things. Indeed, every one believed 
that there had been a time when, by the sound of 
music, men could tame wild beasts and make flowers 
bloom in desert places, and move heavy stones and 
trees. But whether it was really true that the great 
80 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


palace had been made in this way — this was not so 
certain. There were some, however, who believed 
the legend with all their hearts, and they had hopes 
that a new palace might be made as beautiful as the 
one destroyed by the earthquake. For, they said, 
what has been done can be done again. If it is 
really true that a great musician made the old palace, 
it may be that some day we shall find a musician who 
can make another. 

The musicians, of course, were especially interested 
in the old legend, and many a one of them made up 
his mind to try to equal the music of the earlier time. 
Often you might pass by the edge of the waste place 
where the old palace had stood, and see some musician 
playing there. He had, perhaps, been working for 
years on a tune which he hoped would be beautiful 
enough to raise a new palace from the ruins of the 
old. In those days men played on lyres or harps, 
or on flutes and pipes made of reeds that grew by the 
water-side; there were no organs, no orchestras, and 
no choirs. So the musicians came alone, one by one, 
and played their loveliest music, not minding that 
those who passed by often laughed at them for believing 
that anything would come of it; for they did not mind 
being laughed at when they had hope of such great 
81 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


glory as the maker of a palace would surely win. 
This went on year by year, until the young king grew 
to be almost as old as his father had been when he died, 
but no musician as great as those of the earlier time 
was found. 

Now there lived in the city a boy named Agathon, 
who wished to be a musician. He had played on the 
lyre ever since he was old enough to carry it, and 
there was no boy in the kingdom who could make 
sweeter music. Agathon had also a friend named 
Philo, who was as fond as he of playing on the lyre. 
They used often to talk together of the days when 
they should learn to play so well that they would dare 
to go, like the other musicians, and try to raise a new 
palace. 

“ I am sure it will be you who will finally do it,” 
Philo would say to Agathon. 

“ No,” the other would answer, “ I shall try, but 
by that time I am sure you will play a great deal 
better than I. And if it is one of us, we are such 
good friends that it will not matter which.” 

One day the two boys made a discovery. It 
happened that Agathon was playing on his lyre, when 
Philo, coming in to see him, heard the tune, and was 
so delighted with it that he cried, “ I must try to 
82 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


play it, too.” So he ran for his own lyre, and presently 
began to play before Agathon had finished. He did 
not strike the same notes that Agathon did, but other 
notes a little lower in the scale; and instead of making 
discord, the different notes sounded so sweetly together 
that both the boys looked up in surprise. 

“ This is a new kind of music,” said Agathon, “and 
I think it is better than when either you or I play 
alone.” So they tried to play in this way a number 
of different tunes. 

When they had done this for a time they had 
another thought. “ If two different notes played 
together are more beautiful than one,” said Philo, 
“ why may not three be more beautiful than two? ” 

“Sure enough!” said Agathon. “And what is 
more, it may be that in this way people could make 
music as fine as that by which the palace was made.” 

Having once formed this idea, the two boys were 
eager that it should be tried. So they went at once to 
one of the chief musicians of the city, with whom they 
were acquainted, and told him what they had discovered 
by playing their two instruments together. Then they 
suggested that he should take a friend with him — or per- 
haps even two friends — to the place where the palace 
had stood, and try what could be done by the new music. 
83 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


The musician was interested in what they said, 
but he shook his head. 

“ It would be of no use,” he said. “ There is no 
musician who has not tried already, and it is foolish 
to think that two or three of us could play together 
better than we can separately. Besides, each of us 
wants the glory of making the new palace for himself, 
and if we did it together no one would be satisfied.” 

“ Would it not be enough,” asked Agathon, “ to 
have the pleasure of making it for the king, even if no 
one knew who had done it at all? ” 

“ No,” said the musician, “ if I do it I want to do 
it by myself, and have the glory of it.” And when the 
boys spoke to other musicians, they said very much 
the same thing. 

But Agathon and Philo were not discouraged. 
First of all they looked for still another player; and 
when they heard of a crippled boy who lived not far 
away, and who was said to be very fond of music, 
they asked him to join them. He was very much 
surprised when they told him that they wanted him 
to learn to play his lyre at the same time that they 
played theirs, and yet not to play the same notes. 
But presently he learned to do it, striking notes a 
little lower in the scale than either Agathon or Philo; 

84 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


and when all three made music together, they were 
sure it was the most beautiful sound they had ever 
heard. 

“ Let us go and play at the place of the palace!/* 
said Philo. “ It will do no harm to try.” 

As the next day was a holiday, and they had 
planned nothing else to do, it was agreed. They rose 
very early in the morning, before any of the crowds of 
the city would be on the streets, took their lyres under 
their arms, and made their way toward the place of 
the old palace, helping the crippled boy as they walked. 

When they were near the place, they met a sad- 
looking man coming away. He, too, was evidently a. 
musician, for he had a lyre under his arm. But be- 
seemed to be a stranger in the city, and the boys 
stopped to ask him why he was so sad. 

“ I have come a long way,” he said, “ because I 
wanted to try the skill of my lyre with the musicians; 
of your city, and see whether I could not prove myself 
as great a master as the one who made your lost, 
palace. But I have tried, and have done no better 
than any of the rest.” 

“ Do not be sad about it, then,” said Agathon,. 
“ but turn about and try once more with us. For you 
have a larger lyre, with heavy strings, and I have 
85 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


thought that if we could add to our three kinds of 
notes another still farther down the scale, the music 
would sound more beautiful than ever. Come with 
ns, and listen when we play; then perhaps you will 
see how to join in and help us.” 

So the stranger turned about and went with the 
three boys to the place of the palace. Now the boys 
had supposed that, as it was so early in the morning, 
they would be the only ones there. But it happened 
that a great many musicians had felt, like them, that 
the morning of the holiday would be a very good time 
to make another trial of their instruments, and had 
also thought, like them, that by coming early they 
would not be interrupted by the crowds. So when 
the three boys and the stranger came to the street 
that looked into the place of the palace, they found 
it almost filled with musicians, some carrying lyres, 
like themselves, and some with harps or flutes or 
other instruments. It was all very quiet, however, 
since no one cared to try his skill at playing before all 
the rest; for every musician was jealous of the others. 

After they had looked about for a few minutes, 
and had seen why it was that so many were there and 
yet that there was no music, Philo said: 

“ Let us begin to play, Agathon. It can do no 
86 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


harm, and perhaps we can really show these musicians 
how much better music can be made by playing 
together, than by each one playing for himself.” 

“ Very well,” said Agathon. “ Let us begin.” 

So they took up their lyres and began to play 
them together as they had learned to do; and presently 
the stranger, whom they had brought with them, 
touched the strings of his lyre very softly, to see if he 
could find deep notes that would sound sweetly with* 
those of the boys. It was not long before he did so, 
and when he began really to play with them, and the 
four lyres sounded in concert, it seemed to Agathon 
that he heard for the first time the music of which he 
had been dreaming alLhis life. 

Now the other musicians who were standing by in 
silence were listening with the greatest surprise, for 
they had never heard any music like this in all 
their lives. After a little time, one and another of 
them, seeing that it was possible to play at the same 
time with others, took up his instrument and began 
to join the tune that the four were playing, for the 
tune itself was known to all of them, being the 
chief national song of the kingdom. So there spread 
from one musician to another the desire to take a part 
in this strange new music, until hardly any were left 
87 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 

* 

who could keep from taking up their instruments and 
joining in one part or another of what the others were 
playing. And there went up a great mingled sound 
that swept over the whole part of the city where they 
stood, and seemed to fill all the air with music. 
Playing in this way, all the musicians together, it 
happened at last that, as they grew more and more 
joyful with the sound, they struck a great chord, so 
much more beautiful than anything they had ever 
heard before, that they held it for a long time, not 
wishing to change this sound for any other, and 
looking at one another with eyes’ full of wonder and 
happiness. 

And as they did so, there came into the volume 
of music the sound of great shouting, for men who 
had gathered in the streets to listen to the players 
were calling — “ Look, look! The palace! the palace! ” 
And when all the people turned their eyes to the great 
empty space which had lain waste for so long, they 
saw a wonderful sight. The earth was breaking away, 
almost as though another earthquake were pushing it, 
and out of the midst of it were rising great walls of white 
marble, that lifted themselves higher and higher, until 
there stood in the morning sunshine a new palace of 
as perfect beauty as men had ever dreamed of in the 


THE PALACE MADE BY MUSIC 


old one. All these years it had waited for that great 
chord of music to lift it out of the earth, and at last 
it had come. 

This, as I have heard the story, is the way in which 
men learned to make music together, instead of 
playing and singing each for himself. And this is the 
way in which the new palace was made for the king 
who had been so long without one. But no one quite 
knew who had done it, so the musicians forgot their 
jealousies of one another, and all the people rejoiced 
together. And if there has not been another earth- 
quake, I suppose the new palace must be standing 
still. 



The Forest Full of Friends 


T HERE was once a little orphan girl named Elsa, 
who lived in a lonely place by the side of a great 
forest, with an old woman who was her only friend. 
Elsa’s father and mother had died when she was a 
baby, and this old woman had brought her home to 
90 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


care for her, so they two had lived there together until 
Elsa was ten years old. 

But now the old woman was growing so old that 
she thought it unlikely that she could live much longer, 
so she began to look about for another place to which 
Elsa could go. There was only one place she could 
think of, and that was the king’s palace. It stood 
in the capital city, and that was not so far away but 
that one could walk to it; and although the old woman 
had not been there for many years, she knew what a 
beautiful palace it was, and that it was full, not only 
of princes and princesses, but of courtiers and fine 
ladies and pages and maids-of-honor. 

Now on the first day of every year the king chose 
from among the children of the kingdom a boy and a 
girl, the best-looking and best-behaved that could be 
found, to be kept at the palace and brought up among 
the pages and maids-of-honor. The old woman knew 
that Elsa, although she was a poor child and never 
had any fine clothing, was growing to be very beautiful. 
She was also remarkably well-behaved. For these 
reasons, she thought, Elsa might be chosen as one of 
the children of the palace, and if only she were, there 
would be no more care about her future. 

So, when the next New Year was near at hand, the 


9i 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


old woman explained to Elsa that, as she might not 
live much longer, she wished to find her another home, 
and told her that she intended to take her to the 
palace, in order to see whether the king would not 
choose her to be a maid-of -honor. Elsa was a little 
frightened at the thought, for she had never been in 
a palace, and did not believe that she could ever learn 
to live there. She thought it would be much more 
pleasant to stay with the old woman. But the old 
woman explained to her that that was only because 
she had never been to the great city and seen what a 
beautiful place it was. So Elsa let the old woman 
prepare the best dress that she could find, and went 
with her to the city, starting very early on the morning 
of New Year’s Day. 

Elsa had never imagined anything so beautiful as 
the great city, with the palace standing in its center, 
surrounded by a splendid park. Could it be possible, 
she said to herself, that she would ever really live in 
such a place? When they approached the gate, they 
saw many other children coming, brought by their 
families and friends in the hope that they would be 
chosen by the king; but, though they were all dressed 
more finely than Elsa, the old woman said to herself 
that there was none of them more beautiful. So she still 
hoped for success. 


92 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


But when they came up to the palace door, and 
asked if they might be admitted for the choosing of 
the children, the porter said to Elsa: 

“Where are your friends?” 

“ I have no friends,” she answered, “ except this 
old woman.” 

“Impossible! ” said the porter. For he saw that 
she was really very beautiful, and wished to admit 
her. “You must have other friends. Do you not 
know that it is one of the rules that every child 
coming to-day must bring five friends to introduce 
him to the king? And the more rich and powerful 
they are, the better pleased the king will be.” 

Then Elsa and the old woman noticed that all the 
other children coming through the entrance were 
accompanied by groups of friends, dressed quite as 
splendidly as the boys and girls themselves. But it 
did them no good to learn of this custom, for neither 
of them had a friend in the whole city. 

“ I am very sorry to have troubled you,” said 
Elsa to the porter, “ but I have no other friends in 
the world.” 

And the porter, though he spoke very kindly to 
them, knew that the king would not allow him to break 
the rules. So he opened the gate for them, and they 
turned sadly away. 


93 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


When they reached home that night they were 
very tired, and the little house at the edge of the 
forest seemed small and lonely, after the sight of the 
great city and its people. Still, Elsa was not sorry 
to be at home again, and to find that she need not 
leave the old woman. There was only one thing 
that made her sad: that was to think that she had 
no other friends. She had never been troubled by 
this before, but when she had seen the children playing 
together on the city streets, and had been unable to 
think of any friends in the whole world whom she 
might ask to introduce her at the palace, she knew 
for the first time what it was to be really lonesome. 
And for this reason the little yard of the old woman’s 
house was no longer as pleasant a place as it had 
been before. 

The old woman watched Elsa and knew why it 
was that she was not happy. A day or two after 
their journey to the city she called her into the house, 
and said to her: 

“ I think you had better go into the forest and play.” 

“Why, what do you mean?” said Elsa, for the 
forest was very big and dark, and people were so 
afraid of what might be hidden in it, that throughout 
all the kingdom it was called the Forest Full of Fears, 


94 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


So Elsa said: “ Why are you not afraid to have me 
go into the forest? ” 

“ Because,” said the old woman, “ you are old 
enough now to know that there is nothing bad in. 
the forest, if you take nothing bad into it. And as I 
see that you are feeling lonely, I think you might 
find some friends there.” 

This seemed even more strange to Elsa, that 
friends could be found in that great, dark forest. 
But she believed that the old woman must know 
what she was talking about, so she made ready to go. 

“ Come here,” said the old woman again, before 
she had started. “ I have something to give you. 
These are very wonderful drops, that my father gave 
to me before he died, and I have been keeping them 
for you all these years, for there are not many of 
them left. You must use only a drop or two at a. 
time.” 

“ And what are they for? ” asked Elsa. 

“ To put on your ears,” said the old woman, “ so 
that you may understand any one who speaks in a. 
different language from your own. I think you may 
find some friends in the forest that you could not 
understand without them. So take them with you.” 
And she gave Elsa a tiny bottle, which the little 


95 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


girl hid inside her dress with the greatest care. 
It seemed very strange to her to be really walking 
in the Forest Full of Fears, but she did not feel 
afraid. It was a bright day, so that the sunshine 
came through the thick branches of the trees, and 
made beautiful shadows on the ground. There was 
also a little breeze blowing through the forest, that 
made the leaves rustle in a whispering way, as if they 
were talking to Elsa. Indeed, the more she listened 
to them, the more it seemed to her as if they were 
really trying to speak to her. 

“ I wonder,” she said to herself, “ if the little 
bottle could help me to understand them?” Since 
it would do no harm to try, she took it out, and touched 
each of her ears with a drop of what was in it. 

Immediately a very strange thing happened. The 
leaves seemed to rustle just as they had before, but 
Elsa now knew just what they were saying. It was: 

“ Welcome to the Forest Full of Friends! ” 

“ Dear me! ” said Elsa. “ Is that what you haye 
been saying all along ? Why, I supposed this was the 
Forest Full of Fears.” 

This time the leaves said: “ No, no, no, no, no! ” 
and then repeated what they had rustled before: 
“ Welcome to the Forest Full of Friends! ” 

96 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


“Well,” said Elsa, “if that is really its name, I 
am glad I came to it, for friends are the very things 
I want most.” 

She had not gone far into the forest before she 
heard another sound, that of a brown bird that sat 
singing on the branch of a tree. It did not occur to 
her that his song could have any particular meaning, 
but as she came nearer to him he did not fly away, 
like the birds she had seen outside the forest, but 
stopped his song and chirped at her as if he had 
something to tell her. 

“ Is it possible,” said Elsa, “ that I can understand 
the bird too?” She took out her little bottle again, 
and put another tiny drop on each of her ears. Sure 
enough! Though the bird’s voice sounded just as it 
had before, what he was saying was now perfectly 
plain. It was : 

“Good morning! good morning! It’s a beautiful 
morning! ” 

“ Good morning,” said Elsa politely. “ It is a 
lovely morning, that’s true. Do you live here in the 
forest? ” 

“Yes, indeed! yes, indeed! yes, indeed!” said 
the bird. “I’m very glad to see you.” 

“ Thank you,” said Elsa. “I’m very glad to see 


97 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


you, too, but you must not let me interrupt your sing- 
ing.” For she did not quite know what else one could 
talk about to a bird, yet she wanted to be as polite 
as possible. The bird understood, and went on with 
another verse of his song. 

Elsa walked on into the forest, now and then 
picking a pretty flower, and sometimes sitting down 
to rest on a mossy bank. While she was sitting in 
this way at the foot of a tree, a squirrel came down 
from one of the branches over her head, and began 
chirruping merrily at her. He was a very gay little 
squirrel, with laughing eyes and a tail that shook 
when he laughed, like a fat man’s sides. Elsa was 
very sure she wanted to understand the squirrel, and 
indeed she found that she could do so without putting 
any more drops on her ears. He was saying: 

“ Jolly old forest, isn’t it? Jolly old forest, isn’t it? 
You’ve no idea where my nuts are, have you? But 
you’re perfectly welcome to any you can find.” 

He seemed to think this was such a good joke that 
Elsa laughed, too, as she answered: 

“ Thank you. I should like a nut or two pretty 
soon, for my walk has made me a little hungry.” 

The squirrel did not make any answer, but ran up 
the side of the tree again, and Elsa was wondering 
98 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


whether she could have offended him, when a big nut 
fell straight into her lap. She looked up and saw 
the squirrel’s eyes twinkling at her. Then he threw 
down another nut, and another, until she called to 
him that she could not possibly eat any more. 

Surely there was never a forest with more polite 
or more friendly people in it. After she had left the 
squirrel’s tree, Elsa met a very pleasant little chipmunk, 
and a frog who lived in the brook, and a wood-mouse 
whose home was at the roots of an oak tree, besides 
I do not know how many more cheerful birds. She 
was delighted to find that she could understand all 
of them, by the help of the old woman’s wonderful 
gift; and they told her that they did not need any 
magical drops to help them to understand her, for 
they had ways of understanding boys and girls that 
they had known for hundreds of years. By the time 
it was growing dark, and Elsa began to hurry back 
toward home, she felt as if she had made more friends 
that day than in all her life before. And indeed she 
had. 

From that time the old woman never saw her 
looking lonely. The forest was always close at hand, 
and there were always new friends to make, as well as 
old ones to visit with. Elsa often took crumbs of 


LOf c. 


99 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


bread and cake into the forest, as gifts to her friends 
there, and they showed her all their secret stores, and 
let her take whatever she wanted, knowing that she 
would never really rob them or wish them any harm. 
So before many months had gone by, Elsa had actually 
forgotten that there had ever been such a place as the 
Forest Full of Fears. 

At last nearly a whole year had passed since the 
old woman had taken her to the city, and Elsa remem- 
bered that it would soon be time for the king to make 
another choice of children for the palace. She 
reminded the old woman of this, and laughingly said 
to her: 

“ In those days I had no friend but you. Now 
I have plenty of them, if the king only knew it.” 

“ Sure enough! ” said the old woman. “ I think 
we had better go again to the palace, and tell the 
porter that you have a Forest Full of Friends, if he 
will come here to see them.” 

The old woman was thinking again that she had 
not much longer to live, and she was also very sure 
that Elsa had been growing more and more beautiful 
all the year, so she fancied that in some way they 
might be able to get admission to the king, and 
persuade him to take her as one of the children of the 


ioo 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


palace. She took out the dress which Elsa had worn 
the year before, and made it large enough for her to 
wear again. Then she told her that they would make 
another journey to the city on New Year’s Day. 

When the old woman awoke on the morning of the 
great day, she found Elsa already dressed for the 
journey, but to her astonishment she saw that the child 
had with her a squirrel, a bird, a frog, a butterfly, and a 
cricket — some of them perched on her shoulder, the 
others in her hands. 

“ Why, what in the world is all this? ” asked the 
old woman. 

“ These are my five friends from the forest,” said 
Elsa. “I do not want to go to the palace again 
without any friends to introduce me, and so I went 
into the forest very early, and asked them if they 
would be willing to go with us. And when they 
found the reason, they were all delighted to come.” 

The old woman did not quite know what to say 
to this, but she followed the wise rule of saying nothing 
in such cases. So they set out on the road to the city, 
with Elsa’s five friends for company. 

Everything in the city looked just as it had the 
year before: there was the same crowd entering the 
palace gates, and the same porter at the door. When 


IOI 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


"he saw Elsa and the old woman, he remembered them 
at once, and he was certain that Elsa was twice as 
beautiful as she had been a year ago. 

“ But,” he said, “ why have you all these creatures 
with you? Are they presents for the king? ” 

“ No,” said Elsa, “ they are the five friends that 
you said I must have to introduce me. Last year I 
had only one friend, but now I have plenty.” 

“ Very good,” said the porter. “ But I do not see 
how these friends can introduce you to the king, when 
they can not speak his language.” 

“ If you will only let me take them in to the king,” 
said Elsa, “ I will promise that he shall understand 
what they say.” For she had brought her little 
bottle along, and knew that it would do for the king 
what it had done for her. 

At last the porter threw open the door, for although 
he had no idea what Elsa meant, he was sure the king 
would wish to see such a beautiful girl. So he led 
her, and the old woman, and the squirrel, and the 
bird, and the frog, and the butterfly, and the cricket, 
to the room where the king sat on his throne. 

“ If your Majesty pleases,” said Elsa, “ I have 
brought five friends to introduce me, as the porter 
told me I must do. If you will only touch your 


102 



“I have brought five friends to introduce me” Page 102 



. 


















































































THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


ears with two drops from my little bottle, you will 
know what they are saying.” 

The king was so much surprised that he did not 
know what to answer. But Elsa was so beautiful' 
that he thought she might perhaps be a fairy child, 
so he took the drops which she offered him, and 
touched them to his two ears. Then the bird began 
to chirp, and the squirrel began to chatter, and the 
frog began to croak, and the cricket began to sing, 
and the butterfly flew close to the king’s ear and 
whispered so low that no one else could have heard 
him, even if the room had been very still. No one but 
the king knew what the five friends said — not even 
Elsa, for she had not taken any of the drops for herself. 
But she was sure that her friends would say only 
pleasant things about her, for they all loved her 
dearly. The t king was so much pleased to be able 
to understand them, and to hear what they said, that 
he beckoned to Elsa to come to him, and then drew 
her close and set her on his knee — a thing that no 
king had ever been known to do before. 

“ So you want to come to live in the palace, and 
be brought up as a maid-of -honor, or perhaps a 
princess?” he said. 

“ Yes,” said Elsa, “ if your Majesty wants me, and 


103 


THE FOREST FULL OF FRIENDS 


if my oldest friend, who has taken care of me all my 
life, can come to stay here, too, as long as she lives.” 

“It shall be done!” said the king. And he sent 
word to the porter that he need not admit any other 
little girls to be chosen until next New Year’s Day. 

So they showed Elsa and the old woman to their 
rooms in the palace, where they were to live happily 
for many a long day. But first, Elsa asked leave to 
take her five friends to a gate in the palace wall, from 
which they could easily find their way back to the 
forest. 

“ Would you not like to keep some of them here 
with you? ” asked the king. “ I should really like to 
have them for my friends, too.” 

“You may easily have them for your friends,” 
said Elsa, “ but they would not be happy away from 
their own forest. And I do not think I can be happy, 
either', unless I can often go back there to visit them.” 

“You shall do so,” said the king. 

And he gave orders that the map of the kingdom 
should be changed, so that the Forest Full of Fears 
should now be known everywhere as the Forest Full 
of Friends. 


104 






The Bag of Smiles 

'HERE was once a queer little 
town in a country which has now 
been almost forgotten. It lay just at 
the edge of an immense forest, and 
near green fields and pleasant hillsides; and if you had 
walked through the town you might have thought that 
the houses looked very much like those in other towns, 
and the people living in them like the people in all 
the rest of the world. But you would have been mis- 
taken. In this town there was something sadly different 
from any other place you could find. 

The difference was that no one in the town was 
happy, or ever smiled. At a little distance the people 

io 5 



THE BAG OF SMILES 


looked like other people, except that they had grown 
very thin from never laughing; but when you came 
closer you saw that their faces were all exceedingly 
long, and did not have any of the wrinkles that are 
made by smiling, but only those that come from 
worries and frowns. And at certain times of the day, 
such as the hour when school was dismissed and the 
children came out on the street, there was silence, 
when in other places the air was full of shouting and 
laughter. 

The reason for all this was strange as the thing 
itself. There had once been in this town a wise old 
woman, who, besides knowing how to take care of 
her garden and knit stockings, had known how to 
care for all the sick people in the town, and make 
clothes for all the poor people, and cookies for all the 
children, and, indeed, had known how to do almost 
everything that could be asked. Greatest of all, 
the wise old woman had learned how to be happy. 
She said so herself, and no one had the least doubt of 
it. All the other people of the town wanted to learn 
the wonderful secret; but whenever they would come 
to her and say, “ Where do you get your happiness? ” 
she would always answer: 

“ Why, out of the Bag of Smiles, to be sure.” 

106 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


But as no one had ever seen the Bag of Smiles, 
no one knew what it was. The people hoped that, as 
the wise woman grew older, she would perhaps 
give it to some of her friends, or perhaps leave it to 
them when she died, if not before. But instead of 
dying, the old woman had simply disappeared. One 
sad day she had been seen walking into the great 
forest, as she often did to gather herbs, and she had 
never returned. Her little cottage was found in 
perfect order, left as if she might have been going 
away on a journey, and for a long time it was sup- 
posed that she would soon come back. But she 
never did. 

Worst of all, they could find no trace of her secret, 
or of the Bag of Smiles. They hunted in her little 
house, but could find nothing in her drawers but what 
they had often seen there, — stockings that she had 
knitted for the poor children, neat little packages of 
lavender and dried sweet-clover, and herbs with which 
she had made medicine for the sick. After this the 
town grew sadder and sadder. Every one thought, 
since the old woman had gone, that the secret of being 
happy must now be discovered over again; and the 
richest man in the town offered a large reward to 
whoever would find the Bag of Smiles. No one dared 
107 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


to go far into the forest to look for it, where it might 
be that the old woman had taken it or left it hiding, 
for the forest was so deep and dark that it was thought 
to be unsafe for travelers. But almost every one 
hunted for the Bag in one way or another. The 
farmers stopped caring for their fields, so that they 
might have more time for the search, and there came 
very near being a famine. Many of the children gave 
up their playing and their picnics for the same reason, 
and it was hard to find any one who could do anything 
for you, because everybody wanted all his time to 
himself in order to find the secret. 

But, instead of finding it, they all grew more and 
more unhappy. It was then that their faces began 
to grow long, and they began to forget how to smile 
even as much as they had done before. So people no 
longer came to the town, when they heard what an 
unhappy place it was, and things went on in the worst 
possible way. 

Now there was a little boy named Hilary, who 
lived alone with his grandfather in one of the houses 
nearest the forest. It happened that Hilary was 
not quite so sad as most of the people about him, 
because his grandfather was old and lame, and Hilary 
had to take care of him and run errands for him so 
108 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


much that he did not have much time to think about 
the things that every one else was so anxious about. 
But of course he had often heard the story of the wise 
old woman and the lost Bag, and wondered if the time 
would ever come when he should be able to hunt for 
it. It seemed to him that it would be best to go into 
the forest, no matter how dark and dangerous it was, 
and try to find the old woman herself; for surely she 
must be in there, if she had never come out. 

But Hilary never had any time to himself until his 
grandfather died. Then he was left alone, and at 
first he felt sad enough. He knew nothing of the 
world, except the sober people in the town, and the 
trees at the edge of the forest, with their whispering 
leaves and the little birds that sang in the branches, 
and of the two he preferred the trees. Then there 
came to him the thought that now he was free to hunt 
for the wise old woman, and learn the secret of the 
Bag of Smiles. If he could only find it, and share it 
with all the people in the town, what a different town 
it would be! 

So, without waiting for the neighbors who were 
coming to take him to live with them, Hilary went 
softly about his grandfather’s house, and gathered up 
in a handkerchief all the things that he wanted to take 
109 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


with him. There were nuts and buns for his luncheon; 
a compass to help him on his journey; a sling, in case 
he should meet any giants or wild animals in the forest, 
and one or two little things that had been his grand- 
father’s, to remember him by. With only this bundle, 
and his every-day clothes and cap, Hilary started into 
the forest, not telling any one of his plans. When 
the neighbors came to the cottage they found it 
empty; and as no one had disappeared so strangely 
since the time when the wise old woman had gone 
away, some said that perhaps she had come out of the 
forest and taken Hilary, because he had been left alone. 

In this way the boy began a long journey, never 
knowing to what place he was coming, or indeed how 
far he had traveled from home; but it did not matter, 
since he never cared to go back. The forest, even if 
it was big and dark, he still found more pleasant than 
the town full of dreary people. It was not until 
sunset that he began to feel lonely, and to wish for 
some cozy place where he might sleep. But so far 
there was no sign of a clearing or of any kind of 
house. Hilary was hurrying along, hoping that at 
least he might find a hollow tree in which to go to 
sleep, when he heard something say “ Chee! ” in a 
mournful little voice. 


IXO 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


He looked everywhere, and at last saw a bird 
at the foot of an elm tree. It had evidently met 
with some accident and broken its wing, for it could 
lie only on one side, rolling its round eyes and saying, 
“ Chee! ” as though it would ask for help. 

“ Dear me! ” said Hilary. “ I am very sorry for 
you, but I don’t think I can stop now, as it is almost 
dark and I am looking for a place to sleep. Perhaps 
your wing will be better in the morning.” 

“ Chee-weep! ” said the little bird. 

“Dear me!” said Hilary again. “It is pretty 
bad to be alone in the forest, with a broken wing. I 
believe I shall have to stop and help you, after all.” 

So he sat down at the foot of the tree, picked up a 
twig, and began to make a splint for the wing, such 
as he had seen his grandfather make for a hurt pigeon. 
Then he tore a bit from his handkerchief with which 
to fasten the splint, while all the time the little bird 
rolled its eyes and tried to thank him as well as it 
could. At last Hilary had done all that he knew how 
to do, and said good-by to the bird, so that he could 
hurry on his journey again; but now the bird called 
after him so loudly that he could not help turning 
back. Then he saw that it had started to hop 
along the ground, and even to fly a few feet at a 


hi 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


time. It was not following Hilary, but going off in 
another direction, and seemed to be calling to Hilary 
to follow. When the boy came closer, the bird moved 
on a little farther, still calling; and at last it occurred 
to Hilary that perhaps his new friend was trying to 
lead him to a place where it had a nest. 

“Who knows,” he said to himself, “but it might 
be a good place for me to make my nest, too, since I 
can find no house?” And he began to follow the 
little bird willingly. 

Soon after this it grew dark, but the bird kept 
calling, so that Hilary could still follow it through 
the forest. And at last something happened : he saw 
•a light ahead. Almost at the same minute he noticed 
that the little bird had stopped calling; in fact, it had 
flown into the low branch of a tree and put its head 
under its wing, ready for a night’s sleep. So Hilary 
had only to go on toward the light, and see if he 
could find shelter. 

The light was from a big house that stood in a big 
clearing in the forest, and when Hilary knocked at 
the gate he was met by a kind housekeeper, who was 
very glad to let him come in and to find a place for 
him to spend the night. Then he discovered that this 
was the house of a very rich man, who had so much 


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Page 131 


He was met by a kind housekeeper 







THE BAG OF SMILES 


gold and silver that he did not know what to do with 
it. He had been so much troubled by the people who 
came to ask for his money, that he had moved here 
to the forest, where he lived alone with his servants 
and his little girl. 

“ Now,” said Hilary to himself, “ if he has lived 
here a long time, perhaps he can tell me something 
about the old woman I am looking for, or, at any 
rate, about the Bag of Smiles.” 

So in the morning, when he saw the rich man 
walking in the garden that surrounded the big house, 
he went to him, and asked if he could give him any 
help in his search. But the rich man said that he had 
never heard of the old woman, and that, although he 
had heard of the Bag of Smiles, he had never seen it, 
and doubted whether there really was any such thing. 
And as for knowing the secret of being happy, he was 
far too busy taking care of his gold and silver to have 
any time for that. 

So Hilary, after thanking him for his night’s rest 
and for the good breakfast that the housekeeper had 
given him, was ready to go on his journey again. 
But just at that moment one of the servants came 
up and told the rich man that his little daughter 
Phyllis was lost. She had gone into the forest for 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


her morning walk, and it seemed that she had been 
chasing a butterfly until she had got a long way from 
her nurse, and when the nurse had gone to look for 
her, she was nowhere to be found. 

Then the rich man began to be greatly frightened, 
and gave orders that the servants should stop all 
their other work and go into the forest to look for 
Phyllis. And Hilary, seeing how distressed he was, 
offered to help also. 

“ If I could only meet with my little bird again,” 
he said to himself as he started off, “ I should not 
wonder if he would help me to find the lost Phyllis, 
as he helped me to find the house in the clearing.” 

And he had no sooner thought this than he heard 
something say “ Chee! ” Sure enough, there was the 
little bird hopping along in front of him. It could 
fly better this morning than on the night before, but 
never flew so far that Hilary could not easily keep 
up with it, and went on into the forest as if it knew 
just where it was going. Hilary did not know whether 
it would really do him any good to follow the bird, 
but since he had no idea of his own as to the way to 
go, he was sure that at least it could do no harm; so 
on he went, wherever his little friend led him among 
the trees. 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


At last, after a long, long walk, he saw something 
ahead of him that looked like gold; and when he came 
nearer it proved to be the hair of little Phyllis, as she 
lay on the grass where she had gone to sleep, after she 
had discovered that she was lost. So Hilary came 
close to her, and awakened her by speaking her name 
softly. Then he took her by the hand and led her 
back, the little bird still showing the way, to her 
father’s house. 

When the rich man saw that Hilary had found 
his little daughter, he was so pleased that he invited 
him to stay at his house as long as he liked. But 
Hilary thanked him, and told him that he must go 
on his journey to hunt for the Bag of Smiles. “ And 
if I ever find it,” he said, ‘‘I shall come back again 
and let you share it.” 

So after he had taken luncheon with the rich man 
and Phyllis, he started on his way again into the forest. 
It was now afternoon, and of course he had no idea 
how far he must go before nightfall, in order to find 
another good resting-place; but the little bird still 
went with him, and Hilary felt sure that it would 
lead him by a good path. The forest was as dark 
and thick as it had been the day before, but it no 
longer seemed so lonely, and sunset came again before 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


he realized it. Still the little bird led him on through 
the wood, until at last he saw another light ahead, 
and knew that they must be near another house. 

Again Hilary knocked at the gate, and a kind 
porter let him in, and said he would be very glad to 
entertain him. This was another big house in another 
big clearing, and Hilary learned that it was the house 
of a very great man, who had been so famous that all 
the people in the world wanted to come and look at 
him; and to get away from them he had come into 
the great forest, as the rich man had done, and lived 
alone with his servants and his little boy. Hilary 
thought it very likely indeed that the great man would 
know something about the old woman and the Bag of 
Smiles, but the man told him the same thing that the 
rich man had told him. “And,” said he, “ if you wish 
ever to be a great man like me, I advise you to give 
up looking for it, for I doubt very much if it will ever 
be found.” 

So on the next morning Hilary was preparing to 
go on his journey again, when a strange thing happened. 
He heard the servants making a commotion about 
something, and when he inquired if there was any 
trouble, they told him that the great man’s little boy 
was lost in the forest. 

116 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


“ How very odd,” said Hilary. “ I wonder if 
somebody is lost in the forest every day.” Then he 
told them that he knew a little bird which could find 
any lost person, and he would go with the bird and 
try to bring back the little boy, as he had brought 
back Phyllis on the day before. And they were very 
glad to have him do so. 

The little bird led the way to where the lost boy 
was playing in the woods, and did so even more- 
quickly than he had found the lost Phyllis, for he was. 
now able to fly almost as well as ever, and Hilary 
would run after him with his nimble legs. So they 
brought the little boy back to his father, and although, 
he, too, was so grateful that he invited them to stop 
at his house, they excused themselves and again 
started on their journey. 

Now on the third night the little bird brought 
Hilary to a third house in a third clearing, where he 
found the people quite as kind as he had in the other 
two places. It happened that this was the house of 
a very wise man, who had been so much troubled by 
the people who came from all over the world to ask 
for his wise advice, that he had finally come to the- 
forest, like the rich man and the great man, and 
built him a house where he could live quietly among. 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


his books. He had no family, except a dwarf whom 
he kept to bring him his books and brush the dust 
off them. 

“ Surely,” said Hilary, “ this wise man will be 
more likely to know about the Bag of Smiles than 
any one I have found yet.” 

But he was disappointed again. For the wise 
man was even more certain than the rich man and 
the great man, that it was foolish to expect to 
find such a Bag. And as for learning how to be 
happy, “ I shall perhaps begin to try to find out,” 
he said, “ when I have finished reading all the books 
in my library; but I doubt very much if that time 
will ever come.” 

When Hilary was ready to leave the wise man’s 
house on the next morning, he said to himself: “ WeU, 
this time I shall really have a whole day in which to 
look for the old woman, for the wise man has no little 
hoy or girl to get lost in the forest.” 

But the strange thing was that he was mistaken. 
He had already gone a long distance from the 
clearing when he heard some one running after him. 
It was one of the wise man’s servants, who had been 
sent to ask Hilary if he had seen anything of the 
dwarf. 

118 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


** No, indeed,” said Hilary. “ Is he lost? ” 

“ No one can find him,” said the servant, “ and 
we thought he might have gone away with you.” 

“ Well,” said Hilary, “ if he is in the forest, my 
little bird can find him; and of course we will try, since 
the wise man has been so kind as to entertain me.” 

Now the dwarf had grown tired of carrying and 
dusting the wise man’s books, and had thought he 
would run away for a day and have a vacation. But 
he was already growing lonesome when Hilary and the 
bird found him, and was glad to return with them; 
for it was not at all certain that he could find his way 
back alone. And the wise man was as thankful to 
have his dwarf back again as the rich man and the 
great man had been to find their children. 

When Hilary set out again on his journey, he had 
a new idea. He and the little bird had found so 
much pleasure in hunting the lost people in the forest, 
that he began to think he did not care to give it up. 

“ This is evidently a very bad forest to travel in,” 
he said to the little bird, “ unless you have some one 
to show you the way. And people are getting lost in 
it all the time, for there must be a great many others 
living here that we have not yet seen. Let us stay in 
the forest, and, instead of hunting any longer for the 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


Bag of Smiles, since everybody tells us that we shall 
never find it, let us hunt for lost people, and mark 
little paths where they can go about without losing 
their way.” 

The little bird said “ Chee! ” as though he thought 
the idea a very good one, and Hilary felt happier 
over his new plan than he had ever felt in his life. 

But he must have some place to live while in the 
forest, and he wondered where it would be. So he 
said to the bird: 

“ See if you can not find a nice little house for us, 
near the part of the forest where it is thickest and 
darkest, and where the most people are likely to be 
lost. It will not matter if it is empty, we shall soon 
learn to take care of ourselves.” 

Then the little bird spread its wings and flew so 
fast that Hilary had all he could do to keep up with 
it. He followed it until the trees grew so close 
together that he could hardly find a path, and it 
was so dark that he could hardly tell whether the 
sky was blue. On and on they went, until at last 
they came to a little clearing with a little house in 
the middle of it, and the bird flew to the top of the 
house, and perched on the gable of the roof. 

Hilary went up to the door, and tapped, so as to 


120 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


find whether any one lived there. And the door was 
opened by the most delightful old woman that you 
could ever think of, with a white cap on her head, and 
her face full of little wrinkles such as are made by 
smiles. She had her knitting-work in one hand, and 
with the other she held the door open while she said 
" Good evening ” to Hilary. 

Hilary’s eyes had grown wider and wider as he 
looked at her; and at last he said: 

“ Why, I believe you must be the wise old woman 
with the Bag of Smiles! ” 

Then he told her how he had left the town where 
she had once lived, to hunt for her and her Bag, and 
how the little bird had led him from one place to 
another through the forest, and how at last he had 
made up his mind to give up hunting for the Bag, 
since every one told him that it could not be found, and 
instead to find a house in the forest and become a 
guide for people who had lost their way. 

“ Well,” said the old woman, “ so you have been 
making friends with my bird, and trotting about with 
him all these days that he has been away from home ? ” 
“ Your bird! ” said Hilary. “ Why, if it was your 
bird, why did he not show me the way to your house 
in the first place? ” 


1 2 1 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


“ Because,” said the old woman, “ he never 
brings any one to my house who is looking for it. 
Do you think that is strange? I have nothing to 
give anybody, and only this poor little house that you 
see.” 

“ Then it is not true,” asked Hilary, “ that you 
have the Bag of Smiles? ” 

The old woman laughed a pleasant laugh. “ Per- 
haps I may have it,” she said, “ but I never saw it. 
I am sure, if I have, that you must have it, too, 
for you were smiling as hard as. you could when you 
told me about the way in which you and my bird 
have been helping people out of the forest, and how 
you have enjoyed it.” 

“ And do you agree with me,” said Hilary, “ that 
that is a better thing to do than to go on hunting 
the Bag?” 

“ Of course I do,” said the old woman, “ and so 
does the bird, or he would never have brought you 
here. If you want to stay here and live with us, 
we shall be very glad to have you. My porridge is 
cooking now, and we can soon have supper.” 

So Hilary, who thought that nothing in the world 
would be nicer than to stay in such a dear little house 
with such a delightful old woman and such a friendly 


122 


THE BAG OF SMILES 


bird, went in and laid down his bundle. And when 
the old woman served the porridge for supper, the 
little bird flew in at the window and sang to them 
while they ate. 


The Castle Under 
the Sea 


T HERE was once an island 
kingdom in a distant ocean, 
whose people were all boatmen 
and fishermen. They lived en- 
tirely apart from the rest of the 
world, and were glad to remain 
by themselves. Indeed there 
would never have been a hap- 
pier place, if it had not been 
for one thing. They had an 
enemy, who was about as bad 
an enemy as one could easily 
imagine; and nothing that the 
king or any of his counselors 
could do succeeded in making 
them less afraid of him. 

This enemy was a wicked 
Water Prince, who had magical 
powers, and lived in a great 
castle at the bottom of the sea. 
He hated the people of the is- 
land kingdom, for no other rea- 
son than that he hated all good 



THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


people and good things. He had done them harm 
in many ways, for as long a time as any one could 
remember, by taking the fishes that they needed for 
food, although he had no use for them at all, and 
by raising many large and cruel fish of other kinds, 
which not only devoured the good fish, but would 
attack the people of the kingdom whenever they had 
opportunity. 

Mafiy times the king had sent the best of his 
subjects to fight the Water Prince, and some of 
them had made their way to the place under the sea 
where his great castle stood; for the people of the 
kingdom had lived by the ocean so many hundreds 
of years that they could breathe under the water as 
well as the fishes, and knew the plants and animals 
that lived on the bottom of the sea almost as well as 
they did those on shore. But, in spite of all this, no 
one had ever been able to find a way to enter the 
castle, even if he had been brave enough to do it, 
or to think of any way in which to destroy it. 

Worst of all, the Water Prince had now made a 
prisoner of the king’s son. The king’s son was only 
a young boy, but he was eager to grow up so that 
he might fight against his father’s enemy, and he had 
said so many times that when he was a man he knew 


125 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


he should succeed in destroying the magic castle and 
driving the Water Prince away, that the Prince came 
to be afraid that it was true. So one day when the 
boy, whose name was Valma, was out in a boat with 
some of his companions, the Water Prince sent a great 
fish to overturn the boat, and then, though he let 
all the other boys escape, he himself seized Valma 
and carried him off to his castle. 

This nearly broke the heart of the king of the 
island kingdom, and he offered great rewards to any 
one who should rescue his Son from the magic castle. 
But no one dared even try, for the Water Prince 
had sent word that Valma was now alive and safe in 
his castle, but that he would put him to death as 
soon as any of the king’s men came to rescue him. 
So the king mourned many months, and all his people 
with him; and many gave up hope that Valma would 
ever see his home again. 

Now there lived not far from the king’s palace 
a little girl named Milna, whose father was gar- 
dener of the palace gardens. She was a happy 
child, spending most of her time out in the fields 
or along the water’s edge. She loved every living 
thing so much that the birds and squirrels and fishes 
returned her love, and would come to her whenever 


126 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


she had food for them, or wished to play with them.. 
Although her father was a poor man, and she did not 
have many fine clothes or other things that only 
money could buy, yet there was perhaps no girl in 
the island kingdom who was loved by so many people, 
or who had so many friends. 

One day the gardener, Milna’s father, was very 
much surprised to receive a visit from the Chief Wise 
Man of the king, who was thought by most people 
to know more than any other man in the world. The 
gardener bowed very low to him, and asked him why 
he had honored him by coming to see him. 

“ I wanted to speak with you about your daughter,’" 
said the Chief Wise Man. 

The gardener could not think why the people in 
the palace should have any interest in his daughter, 
and he was very sure she could not have been doing 
anything wrong of which they could complain. So- 
he asked: 

“ Are you sure you mean my daughter, Milna ? ,r 

“ Yes,” said the Chief Wise Man. “ I have heard 
many good things of your daughter, and I have three 
questions to ask you about her.” 

“ Very well,” said the gardener. 

“ Did you ever know her to be unkind to any one? 


127 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


The gardener thought a moment. “ No,” he 
said, “ I am sure I never did. I do not think you 
could find a man who has seen her unkind to any 
living thing.” 

“ Very well,” said the Chief Wise Man. “ The 
second question is: Did you ever know her to speak 
anything but the truth? ” 

The gardener could answer this without stopping 
to think. “ No, indeed,” he said. “ I do not think 
Milna has ever even thought of such a thing as an 
untruth, or would know what it is.” 

“Very well,” said the Chief Wise Man. “The 
third question is: Did you ever know her to be 
afraid of anything? ” 

The gardener thought a little about this. Then 
he said: “ No, I never knew her to be afraid, because 
she has always trusted every one as she has been 
trusted by them. But, of course, she is only a girl.” 

“ Very well,” said the Chief Wise Man again. 
“ I do not care if she is only a girl. I think that she 
can rescue the king’s son, if you will let her try. 

Then the gardener was startled indeed. “ Rescue 
the king’s son! ” he cried. “ When she is only a little 
girl, and none of your soldiers or counselors has been 
able to do it! ” 


128 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


“It is not like other things,” said the Chief Wise 
Man. “ The Water Prince, as you know, has magical 
powers, and he can not be conquered by those who are 
strong or who have good swords. I have been studying 
in my secret books ever since Valma was taken captive, 
to find who it is to be who should rescue him. 
And lately I found the answer: It is to be one who 
has never been unkind, or untruthful, or afraid. 
And your daughter is the only one in the kingdom 
of whom any one has said the three things as you 
have said them to me.” 

They talked a long time about it, and at first the 
gardener could not bear to think of his little girl going 
to rescue the captive of the great and wicked Water 
Prince; but when the Chief Wise Man showed him 
that it was his duty to his king to give all that he had 
to save Valma, he gave his consent. 

“ But,” said he, “ while I am sure that Milna 
can not be unkind or untruthful, I am not sure that 
she can not be afraid. I should be afraid, myself, if 
I were asked to go against the Water Prince.” 

“ Very well,” said the Chief Wise Man. “ We can 
easily find out about that by asking her to go. If 
she is afraid, we do not want her.” 

So Milna was called in from the garden, and the 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


Chief Wise Man took her by the hand, and, without 
telling her any of the things that he had said to her 
father, he asked her if she would like to help rescue 
the king’s son. Now of course Milna knew all about 
the king’s son; and she had not only thought about 
his capture, but had often wished she were a man, 
instead of a girl, so that she might help restore him 
to his father. She answered at once: 

“ I should like it very much indeed, if there were 
anything I could do.” 

“ But,” said her father, “ would you not be afraid, 
since he is a captive of the wicked Water Prince?” 

“ No,” said Milna, “ I do not think I should, 
for I am not big or important enough for the Water 
Prince to care to hurt me. And besides, if I were 
really trying to rescue the king’s son, I should be 
so happy about it that I should never think of being 
afraid.” 

The Chief Wise Man now felt sure that he had 
found the one whom he had been seeking, and he 
asked Milna if she would be ready to start the next 
morning for the castle under the sea. 

“Yes,” said Milna, “but what am I to do when I 
find it?” 

“ That I can not tell you,” said the Chief Wise 


130 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


Man, “ for all that my secret books tell me is that 
you are the one who can rescue the king’s son. So 
I think you will know for yourself, when the time 
comes, what you have to do. Go to the castle, find 
Valma, and bring him back with you, — that is all.” 

“ Quite enough, I should think,” said Milna’s 
father, “ seeing it is what all the rest of the kingdom 
has been unable to do.” But secretly he was becoming 
glad that such a great mission was given to his little 
daughter. 

Early the next morning the Chief Wise Man 
came again to the gardener’s house, and he and 
Milna and the gardener went together down to the 
sea-shore. Milna wore her sea-water clothing, and, 
when she had bidden her father and the Chief Wise 
Man good-by, she walked into the sea and was soon 
lost to sight. 

“It is really a little queer,” she thought, as she 
went along the bottom of the ocean, farther and farther 
from the island, “ that I am not afraid to go off in 
this way all alone. Yet, after all, why should I be 
afraid? I have often walked here with my father, 
and the fishes are fond of me, and it is such a beautiful 
place that I can never be lonesome.” 

So she walked on among the beautiful ferns and 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


trees that grow on the bottom of the sea, and the 
fishes who were friendly .to her followed her wherever 
she went, eating the crumbs that she had brought 
for them in her pocket. The Chief Wise Man had 
told her in which direction to walk to find the castle 
of the Water Prince, and it turned out that 
the distance to it was not so great as she had 
supposed. 

Now there were three gates to the castle under 
the sea. The first was made of huge rocks, brought 
there by the giant spirits who served the Water 
Prince. The second was of coral, made to order 
for the Prince, and still unfinished, although it had 
been building for a hundred years. The third gate, 
like the castle of which it was a part, was made of 
nothing but sea-water, and was of the color of a 
soap-bubble with the sun shining on it. It was 
held together by magic, and if any one tried to come 
near it, it moved away as if it were not really there 
but had only been dreamed. 

When Milna came to the first gate, she found 
it guarded by two of the giants that served the Water 
Prince. If she had really seen how big these giants 
were, she might have been frightened, after all. 
But they towered so far above her head that she only 


132 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


saw part of their legs among the rocks of which the 
gate was built; and as she was not looking for 
giants, but only for the way through the gate, she 
paid no attention to them. For just the same reason 
the giants did not notice Milna, since she was so 
near the bottom of the sea, and their heads were so 
high above it, and as the gate was open, she went 
through it without stopping to ask any one’s leave. 

The second gate was also guarded by giants, 
and as they were seated at the foot of the great 
archway, they saw her approaching. One of them 
spoke to her. 

“ Who are you? ” he asked. “ And why are you 
seeking to pass through this gate?” 

“ I am on my way to the castle under the sea,’” 
said Milna. 

“ And why do you want to go to the castle? ” 

“ To see Valma,” she answered, “ who is the son 
of the king of my country.” 

Now the giants had seen many people from the 
island kingdom who had tried to come near the castle 
of the Water Spirit, but none of these people had 
ever really told what they had come for. Instead, 
they had made up a hundred different tales to try 
to deceive the guards at the gate. But it had never 


133 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


occurred to Milna to tell anything but the truth 
when the giants questioned her, and they were quite 
taken by surprise. Indeed they felt so sure that 
Milna could not possibly mean what she said, that 
they supposed she had not really come to try to 
enter the castle at all, but was only amusing herself 
by what she told them. So they laughed at her 
answer, and, since she was quite too little to be 
considered an enemy of the Water Prince, they 
did not hinder her from passing through the second 
gate. 

So Milna now passed on toward the castle itself, 
which she could already see rising before her. It was the 
most wonderful sight she had ever seen, as it towered 
high into the upper ocean, with walls and towers 
and turreted gateways, all floating and trembling 
and glimmering like the walls of a soap-bubble. 
Prom a little distance it seemed that you could easily 
look clear through the walls, but this was only an 
appearance. No one had ever discovered what was 
inside, or had been able to guess how the castle was 
really made. But the Chief Wise Man of the island 
kingdom had read in his secret books that there 
was just one sort of person who could have power 
over the castle under the sea, and that was one who 


134 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


had never done an unkindness. So it was for this 
reason, although he had no idea what Milna would 
do when she reached the place, that he had asked 
her to go. 

Milna herself did not know any of these things. 
She was still wondering how she could ever rescue 
the prince, even if she should finally enter the castle 
and find him; but the Chief Wise Man had told 
her that she would know all she needed when the 
time came. So she walked straight up to the castle 
gate, thankful that there seemed to be no guards 
there to keep her out. For this gate had no need of 
any guards, and the Water Prince himself, who 
was looking from a window of the castle, laughed 
when he saw the little girl approaching. He guessed 
that his giants had let her pass through the outer 
gates because they were so sure that she could do 
no harm, and he made ready to enjoy the sight of 
her surprise when she tried to touch the castle and 
found that she could not do so. 

But the Water Prince never saw what he was waiting 
for. A wonderful thing happened. When Milna lifted 
her hand and knocked on the great gate of the castle, 
the gate suddenly broke like a bubble, and instantly 
all the towers and walls behind it broke in the same 


i35 


THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


way. They might have melted into drops of water 
and mingled with the sea, or they might have vanished 
into nothing at all. Whichever it was, before Milna 
could catch her breath in surprise, the castle was 
gone. She looked all around for it, but nothing 
could be seen except a great stretch of green sea- 
water, like that through which she had come. 

And the Water Prince, trembling with fear when 
he saw* that here was the only one, of all who had 
ever come into his dominions, who had power to destroy 
his magic castle, fled so fast that never a bit of him 
showed to Milna’s eyes. 

She walked over the spot where the castle had 
been a minute before, wondering if it had all been 
a dream. Had Valma gone with the castle, so that 
he could never be found, after all ? No; he lay sleeping 
under a great water-plant whose branches drooped 
over his head. The destruction of the castle had been 
so silent that it had not made him stir in his sleep. 
When Milna saw him she almost shouted for joy. 
Then she came close to him and spoke his name. 
He opened his eyes dreamily. 

“ Why, where is the castle? ” he said. “ And the 
Water Prince? And all his servants who have kept 
me prisoner? ” 

136 



She had the King’s son by the hand Page 137 




THE CASTLE UNDER THE SEA 


“ I do not know,” said Milna, “ but they are gone. 
I am sent by the king, your father, to bring you home 
with me.” 

So Valma rose gladly, and took Milna’s hand in 
his, and they made their way back toward the island 
with no one to hinder them, for all the servants of 
the wicked Water Prince had fled, like him, when they 
saw that the castle had been destroyed. 

The king, and the Chief Wise Man, and the other 
wise men, and the gardener, and many of Milna’s 
friends were waiting on the shore for her return. 
When she came dripping out of the water, and they 
saw that she had Valma, the king’s son, by the hand, 
they gave such a shout that the Water Prince himself 
must have heard it, though by this time he was 
hundreds of miles away. 



In the Great Walled Country 


A WAY at the northern end of the world, farther 
than men have ever gone with their ships or 
their sleds, and where most people suppose that there 
is nothing but ice and snow, is a land full of children, 
called The Great Walled Country. This name is given 
138 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


because all around the country is a great wall, hundreds 
of feet thick and hundreds of feet high. It is made 
of ice, and never melts, winter or summer; and of 
course it is for this reason that more people have not 
discovered the place. 

The land, as I said, is filled with children, for 
nobody who lives there ever grows up. The king 
and the queen, the princes and the courtiers, may be 
as old as you please, but they are children for all 
that. They play a great deal of the time with dolls 
and tin soldiers, and every night at seven o’clock 
have a bowl of bread and milk and go to bed. But 
they make excellent rulers, and the other children 
are well pleased with the government. 

There are all sorts of curious things about the 
way they live in The Great Walled Country, but this 
story is only of their Christmas season. One can 
imagine what a fine thing their Christmas must be, 
so near the North Pole, with ice and snow every- 
where; but this is not all. Grandfather Christmas 
lives just on the north side of the country, so that 
his house leans against the great wall and would tip 
over if it were not for its support. Grandfather 
Christmas is his name in The Great Walled Country; 
no doubt we should call him Santa Claus here. At 


i39 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


any rate, he is the same person, and, best of all the 
children in the world, he loves the children behind 
the great wall of ice. 

One very pleasant thing about having Grandfather 
Christmas for a neighbor is that in The Great Walled 
Country they never have to buy their Christmas 
presents. Every year, on the day before Christmas, 
before he makes up his bundles for the rest of the 
world, Grandfather Christmas goes into a great forest 
of Christmas trees, that grows just back of the palace 
of the king of The Great Walled Country, and fills 
the trees with candy and books and toys and all 
sorts of good things. So when night comes, all the 
children wrap up snugly, while the children in all 
other lands are waiting in their beds, and go to the 
forest to gather gifts for their friends. Each one 
goes by himself, so that none of his friends can see 
what he has gathered; and no one ever thinks of such 
a thing as taking a present for himself. The forest 
is so big that there is room for every one to wander 
about without meeting the people from whom he has 
secrets, and there are always enough nice things 
to go around. 

So Christmas time is a great holiday in that land, 
as it is in all the best places in the world. They 


140 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


have been celebrating it in this way for hundreds of 
years, and since Grandfather Christmas does not 
seem to grow old any faster than the children, they 
will probably do so for hundreds of years to come. 

But there was once a time, so many years ago 
that they would have forgotten all about it if the 
story were not written in their Big Book and read 
to them every year, when the children in The Great 
Walled Country had a very strange Christmas. There 
came a visitor to the land. He was an old man, 
and was the first stranger for very many years that 
had succeeded in getting over the wall. He looked 
so wise, and was so much interested in what he saw 
and heard, that the king invited him to the palace, 
and he was treated with every possible honor. 

When this old man had inquired about their Christ- 
mas celebration, and was told how they carried it on 
every year, he listened gravely, and then, looking 
wiser than ever, he said to the king: 

“ That is all very well, but I should think that 
children who have Grandfather Christmas for a 
neighbor could find a better and easier way. You 
tell me that you all go out on Christmas Eve to gather 
presents to give to one another the next morning. 
Why take so much trouble, and act in such a round- 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


about way? Why not go out together, and every one 
get his own presents? That would save the trouble 
of dividing them again, and every one would be better 
satisfied, for he could pick out just what he wanted 
for himself. No one can tell what you want as well 
as you can. 

This seemed to the king a very wise saying, and 
he called all his courtiers and counselors about him 
to hear it. The wise stranger talked further about 
his plan, and when he had finished they all agreed 
that they had been very foolish never to have thought 
of this simple way of getting their Christmas gifts. 

“If we do this,” they said, “ no one can ever com- 
plain of what he has, or wish that some one had taken 
more pains to find what he wanted. We will make a 
proclamation, and always after this follow the new 
plan.” 

So the proclamation was made, and the plan 
seemed as wise to the children of the country as 
it had to the king and the counselors. Every 
one had at some time been a little disappointed with 
his Christmas gifts; now there would be no danger 
of that. 

On Christmas Eve they always had a meeting at 
the palace, and sang carols until the time for going 


142 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


to the forest. When the clock struck ten every one 
said, “ I wish you a Merry Christinas! ” to the person 
nearest him, and then they separated to go their 
ways to the forest. On this particular night it seemed 
to the king that the music was not quite so merry 
as usual, and that when the children spoke to one 
another their eyes did not shine as gladly as he had 
noticed them in other years; but there could be no 
good reason for this, since every one was expecting a 
better time than usual. So he thought no more of it. 

There was only one person at the palace that 
night who was not pleased with the new proclamation 
about the Christmas gifts. This was a little boy 
named Inge, who lived not far from the palace with 
his sister. Now his sister was a cripple, and had to 
sit all day looking out of the window from her chair; 
and Inge took care of her, and tried to make her 
life happy from morning till night. He had always 
gone to the forest on Christmas Eve and returned 
with his arms and pockets loaded with pretty things 
for his sister, which would keep her amused all the 
coming year. And although she was not able to go 
after presents for her brother, he did not mind that 
at all, especially as he had other friends who never 
forgot to divide their good things with him. 


i43 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


But now, said Inge to himself, what would his 
sister do? For the king had ordered that no one 
should gather any presents except for himself, or any 
more than he could carry away at once. All of 
Inge’s friends were busy planning what they would 
pick for themselves, but the poor crippled child could 
not go a step toward the forest. After thinking about 
it a long time, Inge decided that it would not be 
wrong if, instead of taking gifts for himself, he took 
them altogether for his sister. This he would be very 
glad to do; for what did a boy who could run about 
and play in the snow care for presents, compared 
with a little girl who could only sit still and watch 
others having a good time? Inge did not ask the 
advice of any one, for he was a little afraid others 
would tell him he must not do it; but he silently made 
up his mind not to obey the proclamation. 

And now the chimes had struck ten, and the 
children were making their way toward the forest, 
in starlight that was so bright that it almost showed 
their shadows on the sparkling snow. As soon as 
they came to the edge of the forest, they separated, 
each one going by himself in the old way, though 
now there was really no reason why they should 
have secrets from one another. 


144 



Grandfather Christmas was never so good to us before Page 145 



IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


Ten minutes later, if you had been in the forest, 
you might have seen the children standing in dismay 
with tears on their faces, and exclaiming that there 
had never been such a Christmas Eve before., For 
as they looked eagerly about them to the low-bending 
branches of the evergreen trees, they saw nothing 
hanging from them that could not be seen every day 
in the year. High and low they searched, wandering 
farther into the forest than ever before, lest Grand- 
father Christmas might have chosen a new place 
this year for hanging his presents; but still no 
presents appeared. The king called his counselors 
about him, and asked them if they knew whether 
anything of this kind had happened before, but 
they could tell him nothing. So no one could guess 
whether Grandfather Christmas had forgotten them, 
or whether some dreadful accident had kept him 
away. 

As the children were trooping out of the forest, 
after hours of weary searching, some of them came 
upon little Inge, who carried over his shoulder a 
bag that seemed to be full to overflowing. When he 
saw them looking at him, he cried: 

“Are they not beautiful things? I think Grand- 
father Christmas was never so good to us before.” 


145 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


“ Why, what do you mean?” cried the children. 
“ There are no presents in the forest.” 

“ No presents! ” said Inge. “ I have my bag full 
of them.” But he did not offer to show them, because 
he did not want the children to see that they were 
all for his little sister instead of for himself. 

Then the children begged him to tell them in 
what part of the forest he had found his presents, 
and he turned back and pointed them to the place 
where he had been. “ I left many more behind 
than I brought away,” he said. ‘‘There they are! 
I can see some of the things shining on the trees even 
from here.” 

But when the children followed his footprints in 
the snow to the place where he had been, they still 
saw nothing on the trees, and thought that Inge 
must be walking in his sleep, and dreaming that he 
had found presents. Perhaps he had filled his bag 
with the cones from the evergreen trees. 

On Christmas Day there was sadness all through 
The Great Walled Country. But those who came 
to the house of Inge and his sister saw plenty of 
books and dolls and beautiful toys piled up about the 
little cripple’s chair; and when they asked where 
these things came from, they were told, “ Why, from 
146 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


the Christmas-tree forest.” And they shook their 
heads, not knowing what it could mean. 

The king held a council in the palace, and appointed 
a committee of his most faithful courtiers to. visit 
Grandfather Christmas, and see if they could find 
what was the matter. In a day or two more the 
committee set out on their journey. They had very 
hard work to climb the great wall of ice that lay 
between their country and the place where Grand - 
father Christmas lived, but at last they reached the 
top. And when they came to the other side of the 
wall, they were looking down into the top of his 
chimney. It was not hard to go down this chimney 
into the house, and when they reached the bottom 
of it they found themselves in the very room where 
Grandfather Christmas lay sound asleep. 

It was hard enough to waken him, for he always 
slept one hundred days after his Christmas work 
was over, and it was only by turning the hands of 
the clock around two hundred times that the com- 
mittee could do anything. When the clock had struck 
twelve times two hundred hours, Grandfather Christ- 
mas thought it was time for his nap to be over, and 
he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. 

“ Oh, sir! ” cried the prince who was in charge 


147 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


of the committee, “ we have come from the king 
of The Great Walled Country, who has sent us to 
ask why you forgot us this Christmas, and left no 
presents in the forest.” 

“ No presents! ” said Grandfather Christmas. “ I 
never forget anything. The presents were there. 
You did not see them, that’s all.” 

But the children told him that they had searched 
long and carefully, and in the whole forest there 
had not been found a thing that could be called a 
Christmas gift. 

“Indeed ! ” said Grandfather Christmas. “And did 
little Inge, the boy with the crippled sister, find none? ” 

Then the committee was silent, for they had 
heard of the gifts at Inge’s house, and did not know 
what to say about them. 

“You had better go home,” said Grandfather 
Christmas, who now began to realize that he had 
been awakened too soon, “ and let me finish my nap. 
The presents were there, but they were never intended 
for children who were looking only for themselves. 
I am not surprised that you could not see them. 
Remember that not everything that wise travelers 
tell you is wise.” And he turned over and went to 
sleep again. 


148 


IN THE GREAT WALLED COUNTRY 


The committee returned silently to The Great 
Walled Country, and told the king what they had 
heard. The king did not tell all the children of the 
land what Grandfather Christmas had said, but, when 
the next December came, he made another proclama- 
tion, bidding every one to seek gifts for others, in the 
old way, in the Christmas-tree forest. So that is what 
they have been doing ever since; and in order that 
they may not forget what happened, in case any one 
should ever ask for another change, they have read 
to them every year from their Big Book the story 
of the time when they had no Christmas gifts. 








































































































































































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